Garden cleanup, etc.

Last night's predicted low temperature was above freezing. When I went to bed at 1 am the temperature was already down to 32 degrees. I was tired and it was cold and I decided not to go outside and cover my garden. Besides frost damaged the plants already when it got to 31 degrees a few nights ago.

I had just gotten into bed, and before I fell asleep, I realized the low temperature would be well under 32 and the vegetables I hadn't picked would freeze. *sigh* I got out of bed, got dressed, and went outside to pick stuff. While I had a flashlight, fortunately the moon was near full and I could see well by its light.

I picked the rest of the cucumbers, zucchini, cantaloupe, and squash. I picked the corn I could find. When I got to the pumpkins I decided not to pick them and instead got a tarp and covered them. Having gotten the one tarp I got other tarps and covered the tomatoes, beans, bell peppers, cabbage and broccoli. That was easier than picking them.

I got back in the house after 1:30 am.

My efforts paid off as the overnight low temperature was 27 degrees and it appears nothing I covered froze.

Today I picked the beans, pumpkins, some peppers, and the rest of the corn. The forecast is calling for above freezing temperatures this week as rain is approaching and the cloud cover will keep the temperatures above freezing. That is part of the reason I didn't pick the rest of the stuff. Besides I spent enough time on the other items. For the items I picked (except the corn stalks) I pulled the plants and tossed them in the hayfield.

When the clouds lifted I could see the mountains covered in white. Lots of snow up there! Good thing we hiked Dawson-Pitamakan when we did.

With this colder weather I closed for the year the air vents in my house's crawl space. No need to let cold air under my house!

I also burnt wood in my wood stove for the first time this Fall. I had no other choice as the house's interior temperature was 54 degrees this morning. A little too cool for me.

The leaves are really falling from my box elder trees. The ground is covered with yellow-green leaves with more leaves yet to fall.

My fruit trees are turning colors. One of my apricot trees is a reddish-orange and another is yellow. Also I found one red apple on my youngest apple tree. My first apple on that tree.

Adventure and Mother cartoons

(Click on the images for a larger view.)

Fortunately my adventures don't end up like this. (Though it my case it probably would be freezing to death instead of dying of thirst in the desert.)


And whose mom isn't like this?


Lastly,
For more cartoons by this artist, go to wondermark.com

Thanks Brian for cluing me into this comic strip.

Rain and work

Friday I didn't have much extra energy. Hmmm.. wonder why? Could the Dawson-Pitamakan hike have had something to do with it?

Friday afternoon I was determined to spray a tank of herbicide on the weeds in the NE pasture. I should have known better, but my urge to spray verged on a compulsion. The forecast had rain for the evening as another cold wet front was to come through the area. Already in the late afternoon clouds were arriving. After it clouded over and no rain I decided to spray the weeds. Fifteen minutes after I finished spraying it began to rain lightly. *augh!* So much for a four hour window between spraying and any rain.

It rained less than 15 minutes, and lightly, so hopefully it didn't wash the herbicide off the weeds. After 9:30 pm it began to rain in earnest. This was just after the four hour time window since I finished the spraying.

I had expected that a tank of herbicide would cover the entire NE pasture and part of the north pasture. After all, I sprayed this area... how many times this year? I discovered our recent rains the past week have activated weeds. The grass is not greening up yet but the weeds that were dormant, or seeds, are now growing. I guess that is why they are weeds, they get a jump start on the grass. I found a number of weeds popping out of the ground. Friday I was only able to spray half the NE pasture with one tank of herbicide. I need to spray more when we get a break from this rainy weather.

It rained most of the night but quit by noon so I was able to do some stuff outside today.

The morning of the Dawson-Pitamakan hike the temperature got down t0 31 degrees. This time I didn't have very recent rains prior to the freezing temperatures and the frost did in my cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin, bean, corn, and cantaloupe plants. The tomato plants also took a hit, but they still are over half green.

Today I noticed that many leaves on my sunflower plants were eaten. I found deer tracks in my garden. *argh*

I have one pear tree that is not fenced. This Spring the cattle broke the wooden branches I had as posts and I never rebuilt the fence. Today I rebuilt the fence using metal posts and barbless wire now that I have each. With deer coming into the garden area no sense taking a chance they will again eat the bark on my young fruit trees.

A few days ago while riding my bicycle I ran over a staple and got a flat tire. The holes in the inner tube are not large but they have been bedeviling me ever since. I do not seem to be able to completely stop the leak. Each time the leak is less and I think this time I will successfully patch it. The tire is flat again tonight. I guess it is time for a new tube.

I finished replacing the rotten wood fence posts in the front yard. Still, the fence works never ends.

I split the large branches I had cut from the trees earlier this week. This cleaned up a pile of wood and will allow the wood to start drying for next year's burning. I also picked up my newly sharpened chainsaw chain. The goal is to cut up some fallen trees in the pasture next week.

I don't seem to get as much done each day as I expect. I have to remember it now gets dark before 8 pm, and the mornings are cool, so I get a later than usual start in the morning.

Early night and miscellaneous

I need to make this an early night. Tomorrow my hiking group is hiking the Dawson-Pitamakin Loop on the east side of Glacier Park out of the Two Medicine valley. Many rank this as the best hike in Glacier Park.

This hike has been off-and-on all week but it appears people with other conflicts decided to do this hike. I feel if we don't do the hike now, then we won't do the hike until next year as opportunities for high elevation hikes are disappearing with the Fall weather and snow at the high elevations. We moved this hike from Friday to Thursday as tomorrow will be the best weather for the foreseeable future. Friday, rain and a cold front will arrive.

The length of the hike will be 18.8 miles with two passes to cross: Dawson and Pitamakin. The elevation gain (and loss) is 2935 Ft. The highest elevation we will be at is 8099 ft. I sure hope the snow from the weekend rain/snow has melted.

Since the trail is on the east side, and it get dark earlier, we will be leaving here at 7 am. So I need to finish eating supper and get to bed.

Before I go, just to let you know my car is fixed. Sort off. The flex pipe was replaced and my car is now quiet. It is back to being a "ninja car". I didn't replace the starter. So far the car has started ever since. I'll see how long that lasts.

I finished replacing the fence posts along the driveway. I have to fix the posts on the hayfield side of the front yard.

I made another apple pie today. But with my early bedtime, I'll have to eat my first slice of it tomorrow after my hike.

I also cleaned all the windows on the house. With this cooler weather I need all the "solar energy" I can get from the sunshine.

A few nights ago the temperature dropped to 31 degrees. I hadn't covered my garden but so far it looks like only the very tops of a few plants were damaged by frost. I think the wet ground may have protected the garden from worse damage.

Car, trees, garden, apples

I took my car to the mechanic shortly after 8 am (early!). The car started fine this morning. The mechanic couldn't find why the car won't start occasionally. The battery is fine and the starter is fine. His theory is the starter may have a flat spot and the interior brushes occasionally stop in a position where it takes a lot of effort to move them again when trying to start the car. Replacing the starter would cost $180. I decided to wait to see if the problem occurs again, then see.

The noisy engine is not a bad manifold, but the flex pipe between the manifold and muffler. Cost to fix: $80. I will have that fixed when the part arrives tomorrow.

I wanted to get a tuneup but the cost was too much. It turns out the screws holding the distributer cap have rusted in place and to do the tuneup I would have to replace the distributer cap. A new distributer alone is over $450. I decided not to get a tuneup done.

I have not had a frost yet. A frost came close a few times as my cucumber plants have some withered leaves. Last night I thought I would get a frost. The weather forecast predicted a low temperature of 35 so I didn't cover my garden. When I went to bed the temperature was already 35 and that was before 1 am. I had hours to go until the sun rose. Looking outside I saw the clouds had dissipated over the Valley and without clouds we were rapidly losing heat. High clouds were arriving from the north and starting to cover the partial moon. It was cold and late and I was tired. I was in no mood to get my tarps and cover my garden in the darkness. I went to bed expecting to lose some of my garden.

This morning - as I had to get up early to take my car to the mechanic - I noticed no frost, but a heavy wet dew. The temperature was just over 32. The sky above was clear though clouds were towards the mountains and therefore blocking the sun. Clouds ringed the Valley as it was clear only above the Valley. Somehow it didn't freeze.

During the morning clouds formed and dissipated and so too did fog near rivers and streams, but eventually sun won out and it warmed up.

This afternoon I thought I would take a few minutes to trim more tree branches before working on my fence posts. I never got to the fence posts. I trimmed the rest of the dead and dying branches that I could reach from the ground and ladder on the trees over the patio. I will leave the dead branches way up high till next year in hopes the winter winds will take care of them for me.

On a roll, I decided to trim a few dead branches on the tree SE of the house, my "Lord of the Rings" Ent tree. It turned out to be more than a couple branches once I got into the tree. One large branch fell straight down and on top of the fence. *sigh* The falling branch broke the top fence board. When I want the branch to fall straight down it swings and falls elsewhere; when the branch should swing and fall elsewhere it falls straight down.

When picking up the cut branches I found my missing from mid-summer pair of sunglasses. I had thought I lost them out in the north pasture so it was a great surprise to find them in the yard south of the house.

Having cut the branches down I had to cut them into small pieces to burn in my wood stove this winter. I got all but a few branches cut into pieces tonight.

I am done with my apples. I decided to pick the last of them as a few yellowjackets were still about and eating the apples. Instead of waiting till the apples fall to the ground the yellowjackets were eating apples off the tree. Darn wildlife!

Octoberfest Day at the Senior Center

Today my dad's friend Jackie invited me to an Octoberfest Celebration at the Whitefish Senior Citizen center where she volunteers. I met her at 1 pm and we drove over to the center and stayed until 3:30 pm.

The center had a German meal of sausages, potatoes, sauerkraut, cabbage, apple sauce and apple crisp for dessert. Later slices of cake showed up for dessert. The center hired a chef who works at Grouse Mountain Lodge to prepare the meal. It was good; I went back for seconds.

Music was provided by the Bavarian Echoes Band. They were good and played lots of "oompa" music as the band was mainly horns and a drummer. They played lots and lots of polkas and other German songs. And a number of "slap and clap" songs. The band played most of the time only taking a few short breaks.

A man and woman with the band were dressed in stereotypical German clothes and danced most dances. A number of older couples came out and joined them on the dance floor. I can say the older generation seems to dance more than my or younger generations. As this was the Senior Center most people were older than me.

The male band dancer was dressed in short pants (lederhosen?) with a floral design embroidered on them. I don't know about you but I don't like the look on men. I associate the look with pre-school kids seen in old movies from the 30s and 40s. On grown men... it looks kinda creepy. Especially with flowers embroidered on them.

I didn't mind the dresses some women wore that emphasized their bosoms.

Overall it was a nice way to spend a cool drizzly afternoon.

In the second photo the dance is called... you guessed it! The Chicken Dance. The guy in the middle was doing the "slapping and clapping" when I took the photo.



"For my next trick... I'll make myself disappear." (I would too if I wore pants like that!)

Potato, auctions, spraying

The potato harvest is underway and the potato trucks are traveling to the potato warehouse north of me. Today when I checked my mail I found a large potato in the ditch near my mailbox. Guess what I am having for supper right now?

In addition to the potato, the rest of my supper is from my garden. (well, except for the juice, bread, and butter):

• corn on the cob
• green onion
• steamed beet
• steamed wax beans
• steamed cabbage

Yum!

I forgot to mention the other day that I picked some pears and plums. A neighbor down the road has trees loaded with them, and other than picking a couple to snack on, he let the rest fall to the ground. I asked if I could have some and he said yes. I got them the day it was raining lightly which made picking wet - especially when the branches are wet. I filled two plastic grocery bags, one with the pears and the other with the plums. The plums are small, yellow, and delicious. The bears also are small but remind me of barlett pears in their color and shape.

Who needs money when you have a garden and friends?

Today, Saturday, I went to an estate auction. Naturally I arrived an hour after it started at 10 am. I didn't miss much as most of what was being auctioned was junk. The fellow lived in a small trailer on a few acres outside of town. He had a garage and a half dozen small storage sheds. As an example of the junky nature, most all the hammers - for handles - had pipes welded to the hammer heads.

When I arrived they were still selling from a flatbed trailer boxes of miscellaneous stuff. The prices received didn't amount to much except for certain items a few parties wanted.

Not a whole lot of people there, and many looked to be second hand dealers buying boxes of stuff to resell the contents. I recognized a few people.

The only thing that interested me were two sections of harrow attached to a long heavy pipe. They weren't in great shape but the teeth looked good. The problem was that the rest of the items were so junky, and the auctioneer wasn't that good, so I didn't feel like sitting around a few hours waiting for the harrows to sell. I left to go a few stores to get stuff I needed.

I was ambivalent about returning but since I was in that part of town I did. I wasn't sure I wanted the harrow and wasn't sure I wanted to wait longer for the harrow to sell as whenever I return to auctions for items I still have a wait. When I arrived they just finishing selling the item after the harrow. *augh* Five minutes earlier and I would have been in time.

I asked a few people what the harrow sold for or who bought it and no one knew. They weren't paying attention. So I don't know if I missed a great deal, or if some second hand dealer bought it and I may have been able to buy it from him.

I was ambivalent about buying the harrow before and now I am frustrated I missed bidding on it. I can't win.

One of my stops today was at Wal-mart. In the parking lot they had an exhibition of trick BMX bicycle riding associated with the X Games. They had three ramps set up and three riders would do tricks. The riders dressed and looked young but looking at a couple of their faces they could have been early 20s. The stunts they performed when I was there were not overwhelming, but then I couldn't do any of them at this time and at this age. They did end the exhibition with end over end flips, and that was pretty good.

About three dozen people in the audience, mainly young boys with a parent, though there were a couple young girls. The way the kids - boys and the girls - dressed and looked they had that "rebel" attitude look, though most were probably "want-a-be" rebels. They looked a little too clean and nice. It is hard to be a rebel when your mom brings you to the show.

Oh, to be young again, have attitude, and the time to pursue trivial things because it looks fun.

When I returned home after the auction I checked my pocket gopher traps. Four more caught. I have been catching four each day for a few days now. Last night I checked my traps late and by the time I got to the last trap it was getting dark. That made it hard to find another place to set the trap and I stumbled and wandered around a time before finding some dirt mounds. It was worth the hassle as I caught a pocket gopher in that trap today.

I am up to 132 trapped for the year so far. I have not quite reached the power line towers where I left off trapping last year. Also I am close to where I was when I pulled the traps after letting the cattle into the hayfield. The past month I have been re-trapping areas already trapped. Past the power line towers I find many, many dirt mounds. Lots of pocket gophers there.

I decided to spray weeds. I haven't done this in a month. The weeds haven't stopped growing. They and the alfalfa are about the only green things growing right now. I wanted to go over the hayfield. Other than the fence lines I hadn't done that this year. There are a couple patches of thistle I have been spraying the past few years and it takes multiple sprayings to get rid of thistle as their underground root system will send up some new plants to replace the old plants.

I found the patches of thistle. There seems to be about the same amount of plants as last year, which would counter the results of all the other patches I have sprayed. But there may be less if I take in account when I last sprayed last year the grass was green and I may have missed some plants. Today the alfalfa and thistle were the only green things so I believe I found most all the thistle growing.

I rechecked the fence line for snowberry plants. I sprayed the heck out of them last year and found more than expected growing this summer before I let the cattle into the hayfield. It appears this summer's spraying knocked them back quite a bit as I only found a handful of snowberry plants along the entire fence line.

Depending on how many weeds are growing, the weed to walking ratio sometimes means I go through a tank of herbicide in as little as 45 minutes, though the average time is a hour to a hour and a half. Today it took me almost three hours to go though my tank of herbicide. I walked and sprayed the whole hayfield, part of the ditch, behind the hay shed along my neighbor's property, and part of the NE pasture. Now I have sprayed the NE pasture - what - a half dozen times this summer? I still am finding some knapweed popping out of the ground. I shouldn't complain, the NE pasture actually looks pretty good with much less weeds than when I started spraying a year after dad died.

The three hour spray time today meant I didn't get to working on replacing the bad posts in the front yard. Another day.

Rain and battery

It didn't freeze last night though it came close. 33 degrees. Clouds came in overnight (perhaps why it didn't freeze). At 10 am this morning it was still only 40 degrees. I doubt we made it much pass 46 degrees today.

After 2 pm it started to rain lightly and is still raining now. None of this rain was in the forecast and the 6 pm weather forecast from Missoula showed we had no more rain. Hmmm.... then what is still falling from the sky?

In the morning before it began to rain I folded up all the tarps I had used to cover the garden. The forecast is for near freezing temperatures tonight but I'm not going out in the cold rain. If it stays cloudy and raining I doubt it'll freeze. I'll take the chance of frost instead of getting wet and muddy spreading tarps.

I had hoped to hike the Dawson-Pitamakan loop Friday. But the cold wet weather today mean the mountain tops have snow on them. Bill doesn't like to hike in the snow. In the morning we'll decide on where to hike depending on the weather.

My car didn't start again, even after I had cleaned the battery posts days earlier. It had started for a week now - even when I hiked Mt Oberlin last Friday - though I did try to park uphill in the parking lot in case I needed to roll my car downhill to use the clutch to start it.

I took my battery back to Wal-mart and had them test it. The initial test said the battery was fully charged. Huh?! I had the mechanic in the shop area run a full test on the battery and after a half hour or so the test said the battery was good. Even though the battery is suppose to have 525 cold cramping amps the machine had it at 473.

The mechanic thought the problem could be with my car's starter. I only brought the battery to Wal-mart, not the car. I made an appointment with another mechanic I have used in the past to look at the problem on Monday. When I got home and put the battery back in the car, the car started.

With such a cool damp day the house is chilly. I debated firing up my wood stove but decided I didn't want to hassle cleaning the ashes the next day for just a few hours heat. Still... it would have been nicer to have a warmer house. The indoor thermometer says 58 degrees. All those 90 degree days this summer seem such a distant memory.

Snow on the mountains

After last night's rain (.20 inch) the clouds cleared somewhat this afternoon. Snow is on the Swan Mountain range to my east! The first snow of the season. By late afternoon much of it appeared to have melted.

The forecast low temperature tonight is 32 degrees. Freezing! Our first real frost of the season where I am. Joyce and others in the Valley already have had frost. Early evening the cloud opening above me and the central valley had closed. I doubted it would freeze. Still I got out my tarps and covered my garden. I have too much not quite ripe to lose to frost. A good thing I did. After the sun set the clouds dissipated and the stars came out. The current temperature on my thermometer is 37 and hours until sunrise. Not only will it get down to freezing, it may drop a few degrees below it. In the morning I'll see.

I have been eating beans, beets, onions, and now corn for my supper. This is the 60 to 70 day corn I planted late. The first time I have tried the short harvest corn and it tastes really good. I will continue to plant it other years - hopefully earlier.

I made another apple pie. Yum!

Dan called to see how I was doing. The last time we spoke was when we sold our cattle and I was in the midst of Colleen breaking up with me. Dan's shoulder surgery is tomorrow morning. Sound's like lots of repair work on it is planned.

The tree branches I had cut down yesterday, I cut them up into small pieces. I also split some logs for firewood. I have plenty left to split. My uncles never seemed to find the splitting maul when they visited me this past Spring. They seemed to say something about using a log splitter instead. Whatever happened to old fashioned elbow grease?

Yesterday I had used my chain saw to cut up the large willow tree trunk I had cut down last Spring. The one with the multiple branches growing from its end. Today I took my chain saw chain in to have it sharpened. It may take a week to get it back even though they have a machine that does the sharpening.

Small projects

The rain and cooler weather came Monday like predicted. But the rain was scattered and not an all day event. And one of my trusty flannel shirts warded off the chill.

Monday it rained in the morning then the afternoon was nice with sun. It was warm enough that I could do some washing and I decided to do that rather than finish replacing the rotted fence posts in the front yard's fence. Since I washed and vacuumed my other vehicles I decided to wash my pickup so all vehicles are washed and clean. I hadn't washed the pickup's interior in a few years and I had a thick layer of dust from pulling the harrow over a dry hayfield in the Spring.

This very dry year has been hard on my larger box elder trees. I never noticed it until now when a few leaves are starting to turn Fall's yellow. It appears the trees are eliminating some branches. Once I finished washing and drying my pickup some dead and dying branches on the large box elder trees over my patio caught my eye. The trees are really tall but standing on a ladder in the pickup bed and using a long pole saw I was able to reach and cut a few "lower" branches. I should have closed the pickup's door as when I was done I had some sawdust inside my clean pickup.

Today the morning was nice but the afternoon had off-and-on rain. It seemed whenever I wanted to work on a project it would start to rain. So I did quite a number of small projects I've been meaning to get to when I had a few minutes. It is nice to get a number of them completed as sitting here and there underfoot they have actually been annoyances as they constantly reminded me of things I had to do but was not getting done.

This evening I trimmed more branches from the box elder trees. This time I was able to reach the branches via my extension ladder which I leaned against my patio. I was able to mostly protect my fiberglass patio roof from the falling branches though I did have one long branch fall back against the end of the patio roof and bend it.

A steady rain now. Kind of an odd or unusual sound, but nice, after a long hot dry summer.

Quizzes

My friend Dawn has found more quizzes. Here are my answers:

You Scored an A

You got 10/10 questions correct. It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

There's Not a Violent Bone in Your Body

You're cool and collected, even when someone really gets under your skin. And while you don't blow up when you're angry, you know how to express your anger calmly. You don't bottle emotions up or let them get out of control. For you, violence would never be an option.

Could You Be Violent?

You're Not Sarcastic At all

Sarcasm isn't for you, and you really don't appreciate it when people get their snark on. You still have a great sense of humor. You just prefer a silly joke to a sarcastic one. You sometimes have trouble knowing when people are mocking you. But you do know you don't like it!

How Sarcastic Are You?

Lastly, Dawn found an interesting website that tells you what your religion is supposed to be based on a quiz with questions pertaining to faith and the like: Belief Net

The top score on the list represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

Fence and berry photos

I am half asleep and it isn't even midnight yet! I forgot to include photos with my previous post on my fence repair.

Here is my fence before I fixed it.


My thornless blackberry bush is near where I fixed the fence posts. Five large blackberries were ripe and I ate them. They tasted good. I ate them before I thought to take the photo. They were where the whitish/yellow cluster is in the center of the bush. As you can see more berries are waiting to ripen on my poor little bush. It has been a struggle to keep the bush going since I planted it the year before.

Rocks and fence

Last day of predicted nice weather and I finally get around to ranch chores.

I picked up the rocks along the fence in the NE pasture. I had unearthed them when I dug along the fence to plant trees last year and the year before. These are not 'gravel' type of rocks, but a decent size. The trees have had a rough go of it, but the rocks remained. For the last year or more it was always "another time" to gather them up. I more than filled a wheelbarrow with the rocks I gathered. I put the rocks in the hayshed under the tires of my RV so it doesn't sink into the soft dirt when it sits there. In the hayshed the dirt never gets hardened by the sun.

The rock work done I turned to fixing the fence in my yard starting with the driveway fence. One fence post had rotted and the wind blew the fence at that spot so it leaned enough that I used a metal fence post to prop up the fence until I replaced the wooden post. For more than a month - too long!

I thought I had just one fence post to replace and ended up replacing three posts. And I have two more posts that are wobbly and will replace them tomorrow if it doesn't rain. I was concerned that since the paint was peeling off the posts, and some were showing signs of decay at the top, that I needed to paint the posts before they decayed. Didn't matter. The three bad posts had rotted in the ground over the decades with the above ground portion of the posts still in decent condition. Painting these posts wouldn't have saved them.

Dan and Theresa visit

Today Dan and Theresa from Connecticut visited me. They are a couple I met via my blog when they came across my blog when researching for their first trip to Glacier Park.

They had read about my ranch and wanted to see it. We walked around and I showed them the river, fallen trees, fences, corral, garden, etc., etc. They gamely climbed through barb wire fences to cross from the north pasture to the middle pasture then to the south pasture. When we were in the SW part of the south pasture the trees were filled with birds singing and chirping. Dan helped me move a salt stand from the south to the middle pasture. We picked and ate some apples from my tree. We didn't look at my pocket gopher traps as Theresa didn't want to see a dead gopher.

Then I joined them when they went downtown Kalispell to visit the Western Outdoor store. They had heard an ad for the store that mentioned the store had many cowboy boots. Theresa wanted a new pair of cowboy boots and found a nice pair that she bought. We also visited the antique store downstairs and Theresa found a pretty teapot for her mother.

After getting coffees, and a huckleberry ice cream cone for me, next door at Norm's News, we drove to Bigfork to do a quick look at their downtown then see Flathead Lake.

We had a nice visit. They have had a nice time visiting most parts of Glacier Park this past week and plan to come back next year. Yesterday when I was climbing Oberlin Mountain they were hiking to Hidden Lake. There were so many cars in the parking lot I didn't see their rental car. However when I returned to my car I found a small rock on the ground next to my driver's door. Theresa left it there for me. I guess I am known for liking rocks.

This photo is from our visit to a state park south of Bigfork.

More recovery needed

Today I climbed Oberlin Mountain, then hiked to and climbed Haystack Butte. Beautiful weather on a beautiful day. It was the right thing to do as the valley was thick with smoke from forest fires from somewhere. It was as bad today as it was last month. Bad. But it wasn't smoky in the Park - blue clear skies.

Fantastic views! I took 220 photos. Now to weed out the duplicates and bad photos. I am sure I took many duplicates as I spent quite some time on top of Oberlin and was enthralled by the 360 degree views.

I didn't get back to my car until after dark. Mine was one of three cars left in the parking lot. The other two vehicles planned to watch the stars come out.

So I am feeling tired again and am calling it another early night.

Recovering

Yesterday I hiked 21.5 miles over the Continental Divide and two mountain passes with a side trip to the top of Lincoln Peak. Much more than 3400 feet elevation change as that is just the elevation change from Sperry Chalet to Lake McDonald. Partly in the wind and rain and cold because of a backdoor cold front from Canada that was trying to get across the mountains. On 5 1/2 hours sleep. I felt fine during the hike, but when I got home I quickly fell asleep on the couch only to wake a few hours later to go to bed. I think I slept almost 13 hours. I guess my "real age" is 50 and not the 30 the test claimed I was.

So today has been a slow day for me. A recovery day.

The Sun Road will be closed 10 pm Sunday night for the season. I want to do at least one more hike from Logan Pass before the road closes. I have my mind set on climbing Oberlin Mountain. I had planned on doing it Saturday, but Theresa called tonight and said she and her husband can visit me Saturday afternoon. I met her through my blog and it would be nice to meet them in person as they are visiting Glacier Park.

So the Oberlin Mountain climb will be tomorrow. I better get to bed earlier tonight. At least tomorrow's hiking mileage won't be much.

Peace in the Park

Today I met Colleen for lunch at Depot Park. This is the park downtown Kalispell where the Picnic in the Park concerts were held this summer.

I rode my bicycle as my car's battery is acting up again and my car wouldn't start without a jump from another vehicle. I hadn't driven my car in a week, and as the battery is getting old, I guess the battery's charge had weakened. Otherwise my battery has been working fine since I cleaned it after my Sundance Pass trip. For my to-do list: get a new battery.

I arrived before Colleen did. A band was in the gazebo playing music. They were playing some sort or punk/dirge music. Huh? Music? The concert series is over. Then I saw a few people holding small posters saying "Bring Our Troops home now". Ah, yes... the weekly "Peace in the Park" demonstration. I guess the band uses this as an opportunity to play.

The number of people in the park was small. The band was five people, and I think the "peace" people were another five or so people. And there were a few people taking their lunch break in the park. That would explain a few people eating and reading books. Not counting the band, all told there were about a dozen people.

Not much of a crowd. Not much enthusiasm as the people with the small posters didn't hold them much and listlessly stood around listening the band or talking amongst themselves.

Then a short overweight woman stood on the gazebo and rambled. The band played a repeating riff low in the background. Still, the microphone wasn't that strong and I couldn't make out most of what she was saying. Something about 9/11, war, CIA, constitution, and whatever.

She went on and on and rambled. At one point a guy stood in front of the gazebo with the words "Impeach now" on a large piece of brown cardboard. He only did that a minute or less. No one was really paying attention so he put it down.

This demonstration rates a listing each week in the "Flathead Activities" section of the western Montana independent newspaper?

Where's Colleen? I can't take much more of this.

Finally she arrived and we then found a picnic table on the other side of the depot building so that it blocked most of the noise.

While waiting for Colleen I saw a sheriff's car zoom past with sirens blaring. A minute later a fire truck rushed by. When Colleen arrived she told me about a car chase. The car ran over the strips used to deflate tires. Then a half dozen blocks from where I was it crashed into two other cars. The driver made a run for it but was quickly caught.

On the local newscast tonight I learned he was wanted in Illinois on a felony. He had been stopped in Browning and gave a fake name and got away. The police here were warned to watch out for him. He was easy to spot. He was a black man. The Valley is 97 or 98 percent white with Native American and Mexican making up the other few percent. It is unusual to see a black person in the Valley, whether a resident or a tourist. So this guy stood out. Not a good thing when the police are after you.

Fortunately Colleen wasn't involved with his car chase, just delayed from the aftermath.

A few nights ago the overnight low temperature was 33 at my place. Last night the low was 36. I visited Bob and Jan this afternoon and they were pulling their cucumber plants as the frost got them. I thought I had escaped the frost in my garden but tonight I noticed my cucumber plants have a number of wilted leaves. I *think* the rest of my garden escaped frost damage.

I better get to bed. Tomorrow is our hiking groups' hike over Gunsight Pass. The distance is 18-20 miles and the others want to get an early start so we don't hike in the dark at the end. Makes sense. The problem is that they will be by to get me at 6:45. Early!!!!

Real Age

I took a 34 question test and the results say my real age is 30.3 years and my life expectancy is 95.7. Well, that's good news.

Here is a link to the test if you want to try it out.

Thanks for sending me this test Ginger.

Barn cleaning

Lots of miscellaneous projects to do before Winter comes. One of them was to sweep the loose hay out of the barn. I thought that would be quick and easy, especially as I had a clean barn last year. It wasn't like I had lots to clean. Naturally I was wrong.

There is an old nonworking freezer in the barn from when dad had the ranch. At some auction or another last year I got a partial bag of grain. I placed it in the freezer to keep the grain safe from any mice. I opened the freezer lid to find the grain had spoiled and was damp. P-yew!

First step: clean the grain out of the freezer.

For some reason dad had stored horse hair in the freezer. I am not sure why. Since the grain went bad, it also affected the horse hair and made that mildewy (or something like that).

Second step: clean the horse hair from the freezer.

Then I looked behind the freezer and found packed loose hay between the freezer and the wall.

Third step: move the freezer and clean the hay.

Then I noticed the spot where the motor used to be was a bed of hay. I am not sure how that got there. It was too big for a mouse to make. It was a nice size for a cat to call home. Dad used to have barn cats. Well... old hay and its gotta go.

Fourth step: clean the hay from the bottom of the freezer.

The freezer sits in the part of the barn that has a wood floor. 90% of the barn floor is concrete. I guess they ran out of concrete and finished the floor as wood? In moving the freezer I discovered the wood underneath the freezer had rotted.

Fifth step: remove the rotting wood.

Then I finally got around to sweeping the floor. No wait, for some reason some nails are sticking out in the lower wall. The higher part of the wall I understand as one can hang stuff on those nails, but the lower sections?

Sixth step: get a hammer and remove the nails.

I noticed a section of the wall where part of the wall had an inner and outer section. Don't know why as loose hay can fall between them.

Seventh step: reach and remove the hay.

I found a few odds and ends mixed with the hay. A couple tools and pieces of wood.

Once that was all done I finally got around to sweeping the floor. The debris from the wood section was swept out the side door and the breeze took it away.

With a clean floor I noticed old hardened dry hay? manure? on the wood floor.

Eighth step: scrape the stuff off the floor

I got a tool that had a blade at the end of a long handle. What the tool is for, I have no idea. I used it to scrape the stuff off the floor. Then I swept the wood floor again. Why? I don't know. I hardly ever go in the barn so having a very clean floor wouldn't make or break me. But, if I am going to do something, then do it right.

By the time I got to the concrete section the wind died down and the dust hung more in the air as I swept. At the very end of my cleaning a small breeze came in the main barn door and that made sweeping that much harder as I was trying to swept the dust and dirt out that door.

*sigh*

But I got it done.

I also put stakes in my garden on which to drape tarps to cover and protect my plants from the freezing temperatures. The forecast is for near freezing temperatures tonight and perhaps freezing tomorrow night. The past few nights have had low temperatures in the mid to upper 30s. So far, the temperature tonight is holding up. I didn't cover my garden with tarps as it is a hassle to do so. If I don't need to do so, then I won't. Cross your fingers I made the right decision. My garden needs more time to ripen. That's what I get for planting late.

Rainbow and sunset

Fall is coming! Today was a typical September Fall day. Cool (60s) and a mix of weather: rain, clouds, wind, calm, sun.

The rain didn't amount to much - three hundredths - but it was scattered throughout the afternoon.

I baked a loaf of pumpkin bread and some muffins. And did other stuff in the house I had put off these past weeks because I had worked outside. I found that the pocket gopher that was in my garden must have left after my last deep garden watering. I found the dirt mound where I first noticed him, but no more signs of him in my garden since then.

In the evening I watered my garden and the clouds opened clear to the west to allow us to see the last rays of sun for the day. Even though we had no rain since the afternoon I saw a large rainbow.



A short time later I saw some interesting clouds and then a beautiful red and orange sunset. My cheap camera couldn't capture the subtle colors, but here is one photo that is ok.

Skydiving boogie

Part of the reason I am behind in blogging my activities is it takes me a while to go through the photos I have taken to toss the ones I don't want, then resize the ones for the blog so you don't get photos that are way larger than what many photo viewers can fit in the screen. So, day 2 of my Sundance Pass hike will have to wait till another day as I have tons of photos from that hike to go through.

Here are a few photos from an adventure Colleen and I shared early in our relationship. This was from August 4. The reason there are only a few photos was Colleen had just bought her camera and the camera's battery wasn't fully charged.

West of Kalispell is a skydiving outfit, Skydive Lost Prairie. Every year they have a large skydiving event (the Skydive Lost Prairie Boogie) for a week the end of July, the beginning of August. I've wanted to attend to see what it is like but haven't gotten around to it. Back in 1985, when I lived in Minnesota, I did five skydiving jumps at the Wissota skydiving club in Wisconsin. So I have an interest in skydiving, though no longer a strong interest in actually skydiving as skydiving now falls under "been there, done that".

Colleen has a woman friend who is an avid skydiver and Colleen thought she would be at the skydiving "boogie".

So we got directions off the internet and away we went.

On the way to the skydiving place we drove by Dan's house. Dan... the guy who pastures cattle at my place. I've known Dan for years but never actually been to his place. We stopped at Dan's place so I could see his setup for how he holds his cattle over the winter, and for Colleen to meet him.

Dan was home, though he was initially confused as to who we were as we were in Colleen's pickup. We had a nice long chat and look around his place. Colleen and Dan got along great. I also got a measurement of his narrowest corral so I have an idea of the width I might make my loading chute when I rebuild my loading corral.

Then it was off to the skydiving boogie.

We could see lots of parachutes floating down as we drove down the dusty gravel road out of the trees and into the valley. The valley, surrounded by mountains, is a big and flat. There is plenty of room for planes to take off and land on the dirt airstrip.

After parking we walked over to the tents and quickly found Colleen's skydiving friend. She was relaxing and waiting for her next turn. In our conversation I learned she used to live in Wisconsin and had sky dived at Wissota skydiving club in Wisconsin and knew the owners. A small world, isn't it?

Colleen was hungry but the food cafe was out of buns. They had sent someone to get more buns but we decided not to wait. I bought us some huckleberry ice cream cones from some enterprising young kids earning money selling ice cream on a hot day.

We wandered along the airstrip watching the planes take off, and when they weren't, we looked at the "tent city" of the skydivers camped out for the weekend, if not the whole week judging by the looks of some of the setups.

We walked down the gravel road to the landing zone and watched the skydivers as they landed. A tent canopy was set up. Inside was a man who volunteered as the medic. Fortunately business was slow so he also filled paper cups with cold water for the skydivers to drink as they waited for the trailer to ferry them and their chutes back to the 'tent city' area.

The only injury that he treated was to a non-skydiver. A family was swimming at a nearby lake and a pre-teen chubby girl injured her foot on the dock when jumping in the lake. She was in tears from the pain. The medic had a good bedside manner as he chatted with the girl and put her at ease while he examined her foot. His recommendation was to go to Kalispell to have it x-rayed.

While the medic examined the girl's foot Colleen and I filled the cups with water for the newly arrived skydivers.

In between the groups landing we chatted with the medic as to where he was from originally (California) and where and what he did now.

It took multiple attempts for Colleen and I to develop the skill to see the free falling skydivers in their formations before they deployed their chutes. We could easily hear the plane high overhead and could tell when he cut his engine and the parachutists made their jumps.

Some skydivers came down so fast you'd think they were going to crash into the ground but they braked at the last minute and landed softly. As they zoomed in you could hear their chutes fluttering madly in the wind.

At the landing zone a barb wire fence for a neighboring property wasn't too far from the landing zone. A number of people landed in the neighbor's field to ensure they missed the fence. Once we saw someone almost go into the fence during their landing. That was a "butt" landing. Part of their chute did fall onto the fence.

One woman had to cut away from her main chute high up and go to her reserve chute. It was fairly windy so the main chute drifted away. Way away. A guy (boyfriend?) pedaled up on his bicycle after she had returned to the tent city as asked if we had seen which way it went. Nope. He pedaled down the road and some time later came back with the parachute. Kinda like me and my hat that blew off the cliff last week... where there's a will, there's a way to find it.

Another time a group of skydivers jumped with an inflatable raft. I think they took turns sitting in it as they fell. Eventually all had to deploy their chutes and the raft floated off to the east. A kid with an ATV went after it. I think he eventually found it.

There were plenty of women skydivers. They were easy to pick out as when they came down many would hoop and holler in their excitement. We saw Colleen's friend after she made her jump.

The skydivers were a variety of people and ages, though they tended to be on the younger side.

The Chippy Creek fire was less than a week old. Still it produced a fair amount of smoke. The Brush Creek fire was burning also. Fortunately our location was out of the smoke. Chippy Creek's smoke passed SE of us and we were west of the Brush Creek fire. It was nice to see blue sky and breath fresh air.

I saw a sticker that was the answer to the airplane pilot's question, "Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" The answer, "There is no perfectly good airplane."


The two planes that carried the skydivers. The first plane had a tremendous propeller backwash as it took off. The medic tent was at the end of the runway and when this plane started its takeoff the medic would hold the one side of the tent canopy to prevent the tent from being blown away.



Here is the medic tent. The medic is the guy with sunglasses facing this way. In the background behind him is the barb wire fence I mentioned earlier. The jump organizers placed pink ribbons in the fence to help the skydivers see the fence.

Many of the groups had people with cameras to record their jump.





And no, neither Colleen nor I did a skydiving jump when we were there.