Straightening a tie

The weather forecast was wrong yet again.  Surprise.  Surprise.  It did not rain today.  So I went out and checked my gopher traps and caught one more for a total of 181 for the year.  The recent rains have added up and the ground is wet even down into the pocket gopher tunnels near the ground's surface.

I checked on the river and surprised three whitetail deer mid afternoon.  I had seen on the USGS website that the river level rose from 79 to 118 one day last week.  It was not due to the rains and is a little bit of a mystery.  I believe it was because the BNSF railroad finished this year's river pollution sediment reclamation project about that time.  Apparently this year they built a diversion in the river so they could excavate a polluted section of the river bed way upstream near Whitefish.  I would have thought the diversion still let the river completely flow but it must have also acted a mini-dam.  So the river is now higher than normal for this time of the year.

The elk are still around.  Kelly saw several last Friday and therefore now has gotten an elk tag.  Now for them to show up again on my property.

I decided to straighten one of the railroad ties I had put in last week.  It was one I had put in the ground before getting the idea to use a level to make sure the ties stood straight.  This tie had a slight lean when you looked at it a certain way.  I know, I know.  Being a perfectionist again.

How to straighten the tie now that it is in the ground?  I took my pickup and put it into four wheel drive and bumped the tie a few times.  Now the level says it is straight.

I found a few more boards in the lengths I need and nailed them to the corral.  I still need a 9 ft and a 9'4" two-by-four board and - no surprise - that is proving elusive.  I have one more wood pile to search.

In the meantime I nailed a number of the boards completely to the railroad ties.  At least until it got too dark to accurately hit the nail on the heads.  Tomorrow is another day.