Burning tree stumps

In the Spring and the Fall the County allows burning without having to get a permit. The Fall open burn season is happening now.

I hadn't planned on burning any tree stumps this Fall but I came across several when I was spraying weeds Wednesday. I forgot that during the summer I had dug the dirt away from a few stumps I came across that were at ground level. I want the stumps to be a half a foot below ground level in case I ever pull a harrow across the pasture.

Three stumps were on the east side of the middle pasture. Two stumps had dirt around much of them again. The pocket gophers had been busy over Summer. For some reason they tried to re-bury the stumps. I re-dug around these stumps, gathered dead branches laying about under some of the nearby pine trees, gathered some grass and dead weeds, and lit a fire.

I hadn't started this activity until almost 6 pm. Dusk was falling by the time the fire got going. That was a good thing as that meant cooler temperatures and I could see the embers float up with the smoke. Much of the grass and weeds are dead and burn easily. The ground is cooling and damp from the rain last week. I could see many embers float up high but none stayed hot in the cool air.

The gophers hadn't bothered with the third stump. Still I dug a little more around it and discovered that with no tap root I could chop the side roots with even a bit more digging to give me room to swing an ax. This stump I removed by hand and did not have to burn it.

The flames were gone but the stumps were glowing red hot when I left. I had hopes they would smolder and burn the stumps out over the next day. I checked this morning before I left on my hike and it doesn't appear they continued to smolder. It was still dark when I checked and I saw nothing glowing and could not feel any heat rising from the stumps. That is the way it goes... it appears it takes several times before stumps "take" and continue to smolder until it is all burnt.

Here are a few photos of the burning stumps. I am not sure why my cheap camera didn't capture the red colors, but I think the photos are neat looking. Happy Halloween!

Fixed my sign

I FEEL GOOD
James Brown

Whoa-oa-oa! I feel good, I knew that I would, now
I feel good, I knew that I would, now
So good... so good... I got you!

Whoa! I feel nice, like sugar and spice
I feel nice, like sugar and spice
So nice... so nice... I got you!

Okay, maybe the lyrics without the music isn't the same, but... I do feel good! I replaced the sagging pole over my driveway today. Ironically the song was played on the radio shortly after I fixed my pole.

Yes, this is the pole and sign I had to lift above my Uncle Curt's motorhome when he visited this past May, and which he wanted to replace. And the same pole that Colleen wanted to replace for me shortly after she met me. I know they both had ideas on how to fix my sagging pole, but fixing it couldn't wait any longer. (Don't worry Curt... I am sure we can find something to fix around my ranch when you visit next year. )

I didn't plan on replacing the pole today, I merely thought I would patch it and add some support to it to make it last until next year when I would replace it. The pole was sagging in 2002 and I straightened the pole and then added a few boards to patch and support the pole and that patch lasted five years.

This afternoon I had taken my stock trailer for a short test drive to test the adjustment I had made to the brakes over summer. If you remember, my trailer's brakes had locked up when I brought my cattle home this past Spring. It appears my adjustment worked as the brakes didn't lock up. Still I am not "counting my chickens before they hatch" as my trailer brakes worked initially this Spring before acting up. I may have to pull the trailer around longer to see if my adjustment really worked.

Anyway... when I returned from my test drive I stopped under the sign. Standing on the trailer I could reach the pole. After I climbed up and looked at the pole I realized that it was in such bad condition patching it would be hard to do and it would take as much or more work than replacing it now.

The problem is that I do not have a 22+ ft pole. The longest pole I have is 19 ft. Hmmm... what to do? I went with Plan B and that was to bolt two poles together to make a 22+ ft pole. I bolted a short pole to the 19 ft pole and made a 22' 6" pole. The bolt holes in the support posts are 20' 6" apart, and 22' 6" gave me a foot on each side of the posts.

Before bolting the two posts together I cut them in half at the ends so joining them made a seamless joint of the same width of the pole. I think it looks good.

I had just carried the pole to the driveway entrance when Kelly arrived to hunt deer on my land. My truck and trailer blocked the driveway so I had him go to hayfield entrance. Before he did I asked him to help me put the pole up. It was perfect timing for him to arrive when he did. It was sooo much easier and quicker to have two people carry up each end of the pole instead of having to get one end up and partially bolted, then handle the other end.

Once I bolted the pole in place I put the hooks in that held my "Tall Pines Ranch" sign. Instead of placing the hooks at the bottom of the pole I put them in along the backside. I also shortened the chain links. Now with a straight pole, and the sign hanging closer to the pole, it should be no problem to Curt's motorhome to fit under the pole and sign when he comes to visit me next year.

After I finished with the pole and sign I parked my stock trailer in my hay shed. That will be better for it than sitting out in the rain and snow in my backyard. I can see signs of weathering on the trailer. A future goal is to repaint the trailer. A new skill to learn.

Photo 1 is from 2005.
Photo 2 is from a few days ago.
Photo 3 is after I fixed the pole.



Photo 1 is the sagging pole.
Photo 2 is no pole. It doesn't look right with no pole there, don't you think?
Photo 3 is after I fixed the pole.

Sunday, Sunday

Sunday I...

• baked an apple pie

• called my mom. She is not doing as well recently as her former congestive heart failure is acting up. The doctor did tests, changed her meds, and ordered a home option nurse to visit her three times a week. She also got a hospital bed where she can sleep partially sitting up as she has trouble laying down and sleeping.
  

• checked for pocket gophers. I caught two and found two more traps buried in dirt covered by wary gophers. I also found that I had missed some pocket gophers as I advanced my line of traps south through the hayfield. Yesterday I moved a trap back and today caught a gopher. Today I moved two more traps back to what appears to be fresh dirt mounds.

• raked the leaves from the yard. Other years I had left them where they fell but I found they are an annoyance when shoveling snow. I dumped many wheelbarrow loads of leaves on my garden.

• I tossed my tomatoes and tomato plants. The cold nights the past few days got to my tomatoes as they are looking bad. I uprooted all the plants, loaded them and the tomatoes into a wheelbarrow and took them out to the middle of the hayfield. The deer can eat them out there. While doing so I found another fresh pocket gopher mound. I still have broccoli and cabbage plants to cover.
  

• split some logs. I was going to go for a bicycle ride in the evening but found my tire was flat. Last week I had gotten a rim pinch somehow - I don't remember hitting anything hard with my wheel. The patch went bad today. Instead of a bicycle ride I decided to take my frustration out on some logs. I split until it was dark. I'll stack the split logs tomorrow.

• I talked with Don about Mount Thoma. When he was at his cabin up the North Fork this weekend he saw snow high up on the mountain. If he can see snow from the North Fork road then there must be at least six inches to a foot of snow up on Mt Thoma. I guess I won't be hiking Mt Thoma this year as my hiking group doesn't care to hike in snow. I have a couple other ideas for mountains we can possibly hike later this week.
  

Two auctions in one day

After helping Dan unload his hay west of town, I drove east of town to attend an auction. It was mainly a horse and horse related auction at a small arena.

The auction started at 10 am and I never arrived until almost 11 am. Normally arriving an hour late isn't a big deal as the small stuff sells first, but as this was not a household auction, they had didn't have much small stuff. I missed out on buying the cross-country skis as they were already sold. When I arrived they were at some corral panels. The panels were what I was interested in.

It turns out they had just sold a group of panels. The buyer did not take all of them so they were offering the rest to other buyers at the winning bid. A few people had taken one or two here and there. I was trying to figure out what was going on, what the bid was, get a look at the panels, and thinking if I could use any as a gate (which is what I thought they were initially). The panel had a small people sized gate inside it. I was trying to determine where I could use this length of panel. Before I could strongly decide (I was leaning towards buying two of them), the auctioneer restarted the bidding. This time the person had to buy the remaining 8 panels. I found initially the panels had gone for $75 each. This time the wining bid was $62.50.

No panels for me. In the end it was ok as after I had a chance to look at the panels I found they were panels and it would take some extra work to make use of them as a gate. Still with my loading corral rebuild I could have used one just to have a small extra gate. Oh well.

As this appeared to be an arena and horse boarding facility lots of multiple horse related stuff was for sale.

They had 52 solid panel dividers. One person bought all of them at $180 each. That is over $9,000. These panels are the blueish panels in the photo.

Other items sold for relatively high prices. The winning bid was a little cheaper than buying new, but sometimes it seemed like by not much. It seems that horse people pay good money at auctions. I've noticed that at other auctions I have attended where there were lots of horse related stuff. Today I was shut out of everything I had an interest in.

Once the equipment was sold they moved inside the arena to sell 30 horses. That's when I decided to leave and attend another auction.



As I left I walked by a large corral with a huge big black bull. He wasn't for sale. There is a difference in how a bull and a steer looks at a person. There is no fear in a bull's eyes.



Auction 2

I hadn't planned on attending the second auction as it was in Bigfork, about 30 miles from my place. But as I was east of town already and partway there, and feeling frustrated at being shut out at the horse related auction,I drove to Bigfork.

This auction was of a building company selling out now that they completed their development. Perhaps there was something I could use. The ad did mention lots of water faucets and I could use another one.

The auction started at 10 am and I arrived several hours. The faucets were already sold.

Things seemed to be selling for reasonable prices. I looked around. A few things here and there caught my interest so I got a bidding number and stayed.

The crowd had lots of building contractors judging by their coats and clothes with their company's names on them. And a different crowd as I didn't recognize anyone. Another difference was the auctioneer was a woman. That is not a common sight. She was good.

When they got closer to what I was interested they split into two auctioneering groups to speed up the auction. The problem was I wanted stuff in each group and both groups sold the stuff about the same time.

I ended up with nothing. I was interested in several nicely framed prints from the company's office. I figured since the main items were building tools and supplies the office stuff wouldn't sell for much. Where did the women come from? The prints sold for much more than I expected. The winning bids were not outrageous but more than I wanted to pay. They were in the $50 to $100 range.

While the prints were being sold the pallet with the boxes of bolts and nuts was sold and I missed out. I seen the winning bidder's number was the auctioneer's number. He had bid well on the pallets of nails shutting me out. I imagine he did the same on the pallets of bolts.

I watched as they finished the pallets of miscellaneous stuff and worked through the boneyard. There was a a very long 6" by 12" beam. it may have been 30 ft long. I thought it would work as a replacement to the sagging pole above my driveway. But how to get it home? I didn't seriously consider buying it and wouldn't ya know, it and a number of other miscellaneous wood and stuff all sold for $2.50. Ah well, I tried lifting the beam and it was too heavy to lift. if I did try to use it above my driveway I would have to get some equipment to lift it high, and perhaps get new posts to support it.

Since this sold for $2.50, and few people were around to bid, I figured I would get the pile of steel posts cheap. They were all used and a little rusted with various sizes. A handful of people around and two bidders wanted the posts. I didn't get them, though I didn't try too hard as I have plenty now after getting those from Tony.

Two and a half hours spent here and I came up empty handed. Two auctions and nothing bought. I am feeling bummed as much of the day was spent at the auctions and I have stuff to do at the ranch before winter comes and the snow flies.

Unloading hay bales

Morning came early, and came cold. The overnight low temperature was 15 F. It was still only 18 F when I got up. According to the thermometer it was also a bit chilly in my house... 50 F. It felt cool but not that cold. I've been so busy I haven't fired up the wood stove this week to heat the house. That changed tonight!

I am still covering the garden. I am having doubts the tomatoes all made it. Some are looking suspect at having froze. I'll find out in a day or two.

I noticed a few days ago, when it was warmer and the wind blew my tarp to one side, that the deer ate a few of my tomatoes. Argh! Now tonight I noticed the top of one of my small arborvitae bushes by the road had the top broken down. @#$& deer!!!


Part of why I felt warm this morning was that I woke up naturally without an alarm clock. I've read that a person's internal body temperature rises in the morning and that is one of the body's indicators to wake up. I've noticed that I always feel warmest when I wake up.

And I woke up earlier than usual even though I went to bed at my normal time after 1 am. Dan's truckload of hay came last night and he, I, and a couple other guys were to unload it this morning at 9 am. Actually Dan wasn't going to unload it as he is still recovering from his shoulder surgery - that's why he needed the help.

Dan was outside checking on his cattle when I arrived a few minutes after 9 am. The other guys weren't there yet but I climbed up the truck's trailer to the top of the hay bales and started tossing them down to the ground. I had half the first layer tossed down when Dave showed up. A short while later Dan's son showed up to help. The third guy never showed up. But Don, Dan's neighbor, saw us working as he drove by and he offered to help. Naturally we didn't turn him down.

Don and I tossed down the bales and the other two stacked them. It worked pretty smooth and fast.

The bales were stacked 6 layers high on the truck but we only stacked them 5 layers high on the ground.

The bales varied greatly in weight. They were suppose to be 80 lbs each but some felt to be only 50 lbs. At any rate by the end I was finding it harder to toss the bales. I think Dan was suppose to have over 6 ton of hay bales.

Hay is in such short supply in the Valley this year, and expensive, that Dan's brother brought this hay back from Idaho when he made one of his semi-truck deliveries. Dan had bought more hay elsewhere in the Valley. The Mountain Trader newspaper comes out 6:30 am Thursday morning. Dan got his paper and called for hay at 8 am - he was the second caller. The first caller took the 200 bales stored in the barn while Dan bought the rest. The seller told Dan the phone rang off the hook all day with callers to buy the hay.

After unloading the hay I chatted with Don, whom I knew a few years before I met Dan. It turns out he has a cabin up the North Fork near where Mt Thoma is located. Don said the recent mountain snow didn't get that far north and he thought Mt Thoma was snow free. He went up to his cabin today and he will call me when he returns tomorrow to let me know if any snow is on Mt Thoma. If not, I plan to suggest to my hiking buddies we hike to Mt Thoma next week. This is a hike I've wanted to do over a year now. And Don said the country ran a road grader of the North Fork road a few weeks ago so it only "washboardy" in a few spots.

I had to leave to go to an auction. I had parked my pickup on an incline, and with the heavy frost, I had to put it in four wheel drive to back up the incline.

Trailer Lights and Art Show

It got cold last night! The overnight low was 18 F. The predicted low was 25 F. I covered my tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, beets, and onions. It didn't warm up above freezing this morning until almost 11 am. When I uncovered the plants some of the underside of the tarps still had frost. It doesn't appear the vegetables had frozen. Tonight the predicted low is 14 F. The temperature is already 23 F. A clear sky and the hunter's full moon - big and cold.

At least it was sunny all day and the temperature warmed up to 44 F. With the sun and no wind it felt warmer.

After retrieving the cut logs from the tree in the north pasture I set to fixing my stock trailer light. I put in the new light I bought and it made no difference: the right turn signal did not work and the brake/parking light combinations were one or the other lights.

I decided to connect a new wire directly from the plug to the light for the right turn signal. Still no right turn signal.

I fiddled around some more then decided to go over Pierce RV. They are the business that has the lights lighting their show lot at night that lights up the area. I figured they "owed" me for that annoyance.

I found their lot to completely surrounded by a black wrought iron fence. It seems that after hours you can't browse their lot. This company is security conscious.

I spoke with a couple service employees. No one was in the showroom and the two service employees were sitting at the counter looking bored. Their idea was that I had a problem with my ground. They suggested I hook a jumper cable between the pickup bumper and the trailer hitch and see if that changes anything. Whether it works or not would tell whether I had a ground problem with the pickup or the trailer.

I went home and hooked the pickup to the trailer again. Before I got the jumper cable I tested the light. It worked. Huh? Earlier I had hooked the wire plug to the pickup but hadn't lowered the trailer onto the pickup hitch. Maybe it needed that extra connection?

I was hungry and went in the house to eat lunch. Afterwards I returned to the trailer, put the trailer plug together and wrapped all the wire connections with electrical tape. I retried the lights and I was back to the same problem: no right turn signal. Huh?

I must have done something when I wrapped the wire connections. I unwrapped the wires and had the same problem. I wiggled the plug connection into the pickup connector and my right signal now worked. Ahhh... the problem all along was with the trailer plug. It looks fine....

Anyway, my trailer lights now work as long as I plug it "right".

I checked my pocket gopher traps, then took a shower. Sue Ann's friend, Terry, was hosting an art show at her art gallery from 5 pm to 7 pm tonight and Sue Ann invited me. It would finally be an opportunity to meet Terry, who Sue Ann has talked about many times.

I was running later than I wanted to be and did not arrive at the gallery until 6:20 pm. There were plenty of people in the small gallery in downtown Columbia Falls. Terry just started to make an announcement when I entered. After everything turned to see who came in the door, Terry went on with her announcement. She gave a general talk thanking people for attending and then introduced the artists. I am not sure who they all are as they were in their respective parts of the gallery when introduced and audience members were all around.

After Terry spoke, and before the artist she introduced could speak, Jerry spoke. Ya, Jerry - the guy who I bought the primitive "cave art" horse print from a few weeks ago at his estate sale. Jerry made a short speech praising Terry and her gallery and the art show she put on. Finished with his speech he then wandered into the crowd and came over to me. I acknowledged him and he started speaking to me. He shook my hand and asked my name. I told him and then it registered that he had no clue who I was. I don't think he remembered me so I told him I had bought the horse print from him. I don't think it still registered then I noticed that people were still looking at us. Jerry has a loud voice. So we quit talking and let Terry get back to introducing one of the artists to speak.

Jerry sat down at a nearby table and it was then that I noticed he had a wine glass in his hand. Ah... adding to his usual ... what's the correct word?... rambling(?) nature, add in that he was a little drunk. He later let lose a drunken fart and I made sure I wasn't in a position to talk with him again.

I spoke with Jan the other day and she said her Soroptomists had not seen any money from Jerry's estate sale. He had promised to give the earnings to the Soroptomists and the Food Bank in exchange for the organizations helping him with the sale. Supposedly Jerry used to be a millionaire, though people are not sure if he still is. He is into the "arts" and he seems to fit the profile of a "schmoozer", someone who talks, but has no follow through. Since he has or had money, people seem to put up with him. The rich are eccentric while the poor are odd, weird, or crazy.

The artist who spoke was a Native American artist who formerly lived in North Dakota and now lives in Great Falls, MT. He is a short man whose name is "something" Yellow Feather. "something" is a white man's name, perhaps Tony. As an artist he goes by Two Pinto Pony, or something like that. (As I have said before I am terrible at remembering names.) I noticed he signed his paintings with both names.

This guy talked and talked just to hear himself talk. He seemed to be happy to be enjoying this attention, and combined with him being an artist, he talked without saying anything of importance. He threw out phrases of the obvious when describing his art and his artist style. For example he said "Color is color." as if this means something. Even in the context of what he was talking about at the time that phrase had no meaning. He said other similar meaningless phrases that I have forgotten, but left me scratching my head when he said them.

Finally he was done talking. But then Jerry came up as he begged for our attention for just one minute as he had something he felt required to say. He then rambled on several minutes about orchids, his love of art and how he likes to collect art, Georgia O'Keeffe, liquid drops in paintings, and whatever else came to mind. Huh?! Whatever!

Terry indulged him. I'm not sure if she didn't know how to get control back or was indulging him because he had money or was a friend.

Then it was back to mingling. Later I noticed a number of people had left after the speaking was over. Me, I worked my way back to the back of the gallery. There was finger food available and I wanted to munch while I looked at the art. There was a good variety of foods, from asparagus rolled in a slice of meat to crackers, meatballs, chocolate, nuts, and other foods I had no clue what they were.

I was on my way to the food area when an attractive woman and I attempted to move into the same space as we worked our way through the crowd. We both made a forgettable comment and I wondered from how she looked at me, if she wanted to begin a conversation. By the time this thought slowly worked its way through my mind I already had stepped back to let her take the space and move forward. I hadn't anything intelligent to say as I hadn't had a chance to look over the art yet, and besides my mind was focused on getting some food, or at least some of whatever was left after an hour and a half.

If she had an interest in me, I missed my chance as our paths - even in that small room - never crossed in the same way. She didn't appear to be there with anyone, but I never got a chance to look for a ring.

Ah... an interest in me, or was it just my vanity or imagination?

As I munched on the goodies I looked over the art. I wish I could describe it all but most of it wasn't my type of art and seemed to have nothing to say and was forgettable. Most of it seemed bland. The "Two Pintos" artist was different and he painted in bright colors. His images were two dimensional, in solid colors that did not blend, were of horses or buffalo skulls and Indian feathers. He appeared to glue small rocks or feathers to many of the paintings. While this was a step above the other two artists, it still seemed simplistic with no hook or point of view. I could see some of the paintings more on a greeting card than hanging on my wall. On my wall I would quickly get bored with it. I wasn't about to pay $7,000 for a three or four color two dimensional painting of a buffalo skull with a half dozen small rocks glued to it.

One of the women painters had painted a large image of clouds and blue sky. It was like looking out a window up at the sky. And I thought, why would I want a painting of that? If I wanted that image I would get a skylight. Or a photograph. As a painting it had a slight touch of an artificial feel to a realistically intended image. It felt lacking. It had no point, reason or vision.

The fourth artist was a photographer. His work was pretty good. While his images of cars, old buildings, hayfields and mountains were of common things, he seemed to have framed or tinted the photos to give a slightly different perspective of the image. He was the only artist I had a slight interest in talking to. He was chatting other other people so I didn't interrupt.

The crowd was definitely the opposite of the crowds I see at an auction. This crowd was mainly women or couples. And an older crowd, meaning closer to my age and older. Most people were dressed up, or were dressed casual chic.

To put a stereotypical view on it, from their dress and talk these people seemed to be liberal Democrat elitist artsy-fartsy people. Not that this is bad, but it isn't my usual crowd.

The crowd size was also uncomfortable to me. A small group is fine, and very large groups are fine - but the "larger than small" groups leave me skittish.

Sue Ann wasn't there. I am not sure if she never showed up, or if she came earlier and left already. She had helped Terry earlier and had already seen all the art being displayed.

I never did talk to Terry as plenty of other people chatted with her and we never seemed to be in the same part of the room. She is very beautiful. There were two younger men who, from their dress and demeanor, seemed as out of place as I may have been. I overheard one tell another woman he had stayed with Terry. That must be Terry's daughter's ex-boyfriend Sue Ann said is staying with Terry while he gets established after moving here to the Flathead. From the tshirt logo on the other guy, that may be Terry's on-and-off boyfriend.

Having looked over the art two times, reread the artists' statements and visions and still thought they were a bunch of hot air, munched on seconds, I had no reason to stay longer. So I left. I spent all of a half hour there. A little something different for me.

As I left the gallery the full moon rose over the mountains seen through Bad Rock Canyon. A beautiful full moon shining on the mountains.

Sunny day and Sperry

Our high temperature was 70 degrees today - one degree from tying the record high for the date. A gorgeous day!!! No valley inversions - or at least none remained when I got up after 8 am. Sun, glorious sunshine!

The other day I transplanted my tulip bulbs outside my flower bed. A few years ago when my flower bed was only on the north and south sides of the house, they didn't have enough space for all the bulbs. I found that when I dug up the old bulbs, they had multiplied. Now that I have a flower bed on the west side of the house, and it is Fall, I decided to transplant the bulbs and get them out of the lawn just outside the south flower bed. Again the bulbs had multiplied since I last planted them and I had more than enough bulbs to fill the west flower bed. Actually more bulbs than I wanted as I would like a variety in flowers and not just have tulips.

I also split some logs for firewood yesterday. A number of logs I split but have many more to so.

I spent an hour yesterday in the rainy morning sewing a pair of my jeans. People tease me about my very patched pants, but I really like them. With my patches the jeans are unique.

Now that all the leaves are off the trees today I swept the leaves from the patio and front porch roofs. We don't get the winds that the Dakotas and Minnesota get and some leaves get stuck up there.

Using a sledgehammer - and sometimes my weight - I straightened 7 steel fence posts that were bent. Later I found a few fence posts in my north fence were very loose. Even though I do not have cattle now I decided to fix the posts now instead of waiting till Spring. I imagine I'll have more posts to fix this coming Spring. Fixing these posts now will be less fence work this Spring.

This section of fence has a few wide spaces between posts. While this fence has five strands, I know how some cattle will push against the wires in an effort to reach grass on the other side. Since I got all those metal posts from Tony I used a few of them to "half" the wide spaces between a few posts in this area. Less of a section of wire to stretch. All in all I put in five new posts.

I had some gasoline left in my chainsaw and I used it up cutting part of an old fallen tree in the north pasture. I could have used several more minutes of gas as I had just a bit more to cut.

It would have been a perfect day to spray weeds, but after I checked my pocket gopher trap (four more!) and took a shower, I drove to Whitefish to attend a slide show at the Whitefish branch of the county library. The slide show was on the Sperry Chalet in Glacier Park.

Everyone from the hiking group except Gary and Sue Ann were there. Even the spouses attended. Peter and Edwina also were there. The room was full with people to see the slide show.

The speaker, Beth Dunigan, has been associated with the Sperry Chalet since the Great Northern Railroad sold all their chalets in the park to Glacier Park. That was in 1954. The park hired people to run the chalets and Beth's relatives were hired to run Sperry. Her parents were then hired to help. She was 9 years old and has been involved with Sperry Chalet ever since. 53 years.

The slide show was her photos and memories of working at the chalet, an overview of the chalet inside and out, the surrounding area and animals, and the changes over the years. Very interesting. The event lasted an hour.

Afterward there was a question and answer session. From the chalet you can see the "hole in the mountain", and twice a year you can see the sun through the hole briefly. I asked when and was told August 22. Guess where our hiking group will hike August 22 next year if I have my way?

One can also climb up to the hole though there is no real trail. Beth had a photo of her and friends in the hole. I asked how and she said there was no trail and downplayed climbing there.

I then asked how many people hike from Logan Pass across the Floral Park to Sperry Chalet. She said some, but not too many. She then played up that it is a long hike, 11 hours or so. She mentioned a number of hikers would show up at the chalet after dark very tired and looking for a place to stay. Again she appeared to be discouraging the hike by focusing on the difficulty and that there is no trail. I'm still going to hike it next year.

The chalet, though pretty expensive to stay at, is filled pretty much every night. The chalet is generally open from early July to early September.

The drive to and from Whitefish was beautiful. The fall colors enhanced the drive. The Whitefish Range was straight ahead of me and was a pleasure to view as the evening sun shone on them. I am so lucky to live here. It was dark when I drove home. Along the road I saw some deer. They initially looked like statues, but weren't. Fortunately they remained motionless like statues.

Tomorrow is a hike to Loneman Mountain or Harrison Lake depending on how much snow is on Loneman. With today's warm temperature the snow seems to be disappearing from the tops of the Swan Range. But Loneman is higher and I don't know how much is up there. It may be another adventure tomorrow!

Birthday dinner

Saturday night I joined the rest of my hiking group to celebrate Sue Ann's birthday. It was more of a time for everyone to get together outside of a hike. Sue Ann and I are the two single hikers and everyone else brought their spouse along.

Joyce invited everyone to her house for dinner at 5:30 pm. I was 15 minutes late as I had printed some photos for Sue Ann and Joyce showing them during a few of our hikes. I also burnt a CD with photos of times Joyce hiked with the group and this is what delayed me.

Joyce and her daughter Kristan made the meal. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberries, veggie salad, homemade buns, and huckleberry dessert. Everything was homemade and made from scratch. Even the topping for the huckleberry dessert. Joyce doesn't like Cool Whip so she makes her own whipped topping. It was all very good and everyone had seconds. Some of us had thirds of the dessert as the photo viewing took a long time.

Over the meal Joyce and Edley talked about bear and mountain lion sightings over the years on their ranch.

After supper we put the CD of photos into Joyce's DVD player and we looked at the photos. I hadn't realized that I had over 800 photos! I guess we have been busy going on hikes and I have been busy taking photos. Not everyone had gone on all the hikes so this was an opportunity for people and their spouses to see what they missed.

It was late when we drifted out. Many people left before 11 pm and I was there to show the photos to the end and then chat a bit until 11:50 pm.

It was a very nice time, everyone was getting good natured ribbing about our hiking adventures (some - me - more than others ), and we also were making plans for another hike this week - naturally.

County surplus auction

Saturday morning the county held a surplus auction. Unclaimed bicycles, etc. The auction started at 10 am and for once I was on time. Imagine that! The auctioneer was in the middle of his "this is how the auction works" spiel when I arrived.

There weren't too large of a number of bidders. Most were middle aged men. The bidders were 90% male, a few women, and some kids for people interested in bicycles.

There was nothing in the way of bicycles that I wanted. The half dozen 10-speed road bicycles were old heavy steel framed cheap models or junk. Most bicycles were mountain bicycles with those mainly being small frames or kids bicycles. Some of those bicycles were in very nice condition, but nothing I could use or want.

While there was no reserve or minimum bid, and on some of the other items bidding started at $2.50, the auctioneer would not lower the starting bid below $5 for bicycles. If he didn't get at least a $5 bid, he wouldn't sell the bicycle. He commented the bicycles then would either go to Goodwill or the dump.

I was half interested in wooden handled hammers but the bid was higher than what I wanted to pay.

The only other item I was interested were some of the rolls of chain link fence. There weren't too many items to be sold before the fence so I waited.

The county also auctioned a dozen rifles and handguns. Half the buyers were women. Not sure why.

The auction was held in a large building on the county fairgrounds. It was not heated. As I stood around my feet got cold even though I was wearing boots. I had to move around to stay warm. It didn't help that the large doors on each end were opened half way through the auction. I suppose someone was worried about carbon monoxide. The county was auctioning a half dozen old police cars and a few other county pickups and trucks. A few people would occasionally start a vehicle for a brief time.

The fencing was more than a dozen rolls of chain link fence rolled up. The rolls were various sizes. The winning bid was $50 and he took three rolls. The next go-round one guy bid $10 and then I started. I dropped out and would not bid $37.50. He took the other three large rolls. Instead of choicing more rolls, the auctioneer sold all the rest at one price. I didn't bid. I think they rolls went for $50. A good deal even if the fencing did not include any pipe for support.

I had thought of buying some of the chain link fence to wrap my planned rebuilt corral. The fence would eliminate any holes in the corral. Not neccessary - just an idea. That was why I wasn't gung-ho in buying the fencing. I have enough fencing material now to keep me busy through next year so multiple rolls of chain link fence would just more stuff sitting around until I get to it.

Once the fencing was sold I left and didn't not stay for the vehicle auction. Two hours spent and I didn't get anything.

Deer and sunflowers

The deer have been at my sunflowers again. This afternoon I discovered they tore down another sunflower and ate it. I had a sunflower plant with two heads and one of the branches was torn off the stalk and the head completely eaten. The second head had a bite out of it. I took this head off and brought it to the house to dry.

Of the remaining two sunflower plants, one was small with no edible seeds, and the other one had all its seeds eaten. I guess the birds got to that one. I put some tall sticks/branches around the small sunflower head as I do like looking at it. Hopefully the sticks will keep the deer from destroying that head.

The deer also have been nibbling on my parsnip and carrot tops but apparently they don't like them as all I see are a few nibbles. If they liked them they would be all gone.

Darn deer!

Photo 1 shows the two-headed sunflower plant before the deer destroyed it.
Photo 2 is the small sunflower.
Photo 3 shows my carrots and corn.

The blue tarp is covering my tomato plants.

Vacuum Cleaner

Today my vacuum cleaner reached the end of its life. The motor changed noticeably today for the worse. The motor still runs but it labors mightily, and very noisily, so it is time to call it quits.

Normally a vacuum cleaner dieing isn't a big deal, but this vacuum cleaner has been in the family since the 1960s back in North Dakota. I'll have to check with my mother but this vacuum cleaner could be 40 or more years old. If I remember right there is a story on how my parents came to own this vacuum cleaner - but I forgot the story.

It was a Silver King brand, model AE. It was made by Thompson and Sons, Inc. out of Lyons, Illinois. The number is 199340 and I can't make out a manufacture date from that.

The dirt was sucked into the lower half below the silver band. There was no bag inside to hold the dirt. One took the top half (the motor) off and dumped the dirt out.

And yes, that is duct tape on the electrical cord. The vacuum cleaner is so old the rubber on the cord hardened and cracked and started to flake off.

Squeezing in chores on a beautiful day

Days like this seem like they will last forever - or at least that is what one hopes will happen. The big bad weather forecasters are saying otherwise. Boo Hoo!

I tried to stay on task today and get all I planned to do done before the bad weather arrives tomorrow. Nope, I didn't get all I wanted done, done. Something to do with stopping to smell the roses and taking time to talk with friends. And being overly ambitious in my goals.

In the morning I stacked away the logs I had split the night before. Better to have them stacked and dry than laying in the yard getting rained on. I then got rid of some rocks I had. In doing so I also picked up the rocks tossed over my fence line when the dirt race track was created next door. I guess they were trying to toss the rocks out of the way and they rolled across my fence line. I got a request from my cousin for photos of the track and the little race cars. Noted, and I will try to get photos when they next are running around the track.

Then it was off to Tony's place to pull the last of the fence posts. Again I forgot to bring my camera along! Even though I had dug around all the remaining five posts a few were still hard for his tractor to pull out. After pulling the posts I showed Tony how to use the pocket gopher trap I had given him. I found a pocket gopher tunnel and set the trap. Something else I learned is that pocket gophers apparently do not like something about horses. Horse urine perhaps? The pasture south of my hayfield had pocket gophers previously, but now after the horses have been there since last year the pockets gophers disappeared (to my hayfield no doubt!). Tony only has pocket gophers on his property outside of his horse pastures.

After putting the posts away I drove over to Bill's place to get pieces of fencing he gave me. Naturally I can always use fencing.

With both Tony and then Bill and Marilyn I took time to chat with them.

I didn't get home till 5 pm. After checking my pocket gopher traps I sprayed a tank of herbicide on weeds. Now is the time to do it before it rains. The herbicide is really working now as the weeds are wilting and browning much faster now than during the height of summer.

Joyce called and wanted to go on a hike tomorrow. You know me... I never can turn down a woman who wants to hike. The forecast is for rain the rest of the week and weekend so this may be our last hike for a week. Part of my day and evening was spent nailing down where to hike, who will go, and talking with the Forest Service and the Glacier Park employees as to whether snow covers Loneman Mountain. At one point we were going to hike Loneman Mountain but after the 10 pm weather forecast decided the weather is too iffy tomorrow. Rain is suppose to arrive tomorrow afternoon or evening. Exactly when.. no idea. We still want to hike so I came up with returning to Elk Mountain, this time using the shorter route we saw a sign for during our last hike. Another interesting thing about the hike is this is the area of this summer's large Brush Creek Fire. It will be interesting to see what has burned. As of 10:45 pm tonight all will hike, though tomorrow morning's weather may change some people's minds. We'll see.

Better to get to bed so I can get some sleep before the hike.

Fencing and race cars

Saturday I retrieved the posts, wire, and gates from Tony's place. First I had to roll up the rest of the wire and unhook the two gates from the posts. Then late afternoon I went back to get the items and also dig around the remaining posts Tony couldn't pull out.

Two of the posts were in a swampy area that Tony couldn't drive his tractor in. I dug those posts out by hand. The posts were the extra thick posts and I'm getting old, or getting tired, or both as I had trouble lifting the posts out of the ground. I really had to dig most of the way around the posts and then push and pull them to get them out of the ground.

The other five posts were in dry but rocky ground which made digging around them harder. I tried to dig half way down each posts so Tony can later pull them out with his tractor. The posts are in the ground a good three feet. By the time I finished digging around the final post it was 8 pm - well after dark. At the end I was digging more by feel than by sight.

This morning I unloaded all the items. My pickup was definitely full. The two gates are the same size (ten and twelve ft) as two of my corral gates. As these gates are a stronger metal tubing than the flat metal gates I have, I will replace the gates ...someday.

I also sprayed more weeds and cut more logs with my chainsaw. Is my chain getting dull already, or these logs just tougher? I split half the logs I cut this evening.

I have one more nice day to get stuff done as the forecast is for colder temps and rain the rest of the week starting Tuesday. I need more nice days to get my work done!

My northwest neighbor, Jim, was in his pasture with a road grader this morning. He created a small oval race track. He, his son, and brother-in-law race miniature race cars. The race track is at Missoula, MT and they go down there about every other weekend. No track exists up here for them to practice on - until today. This evening they were out there practicing.

Their race cars look neat and look like fun to drive. These little cars can do 70 mph or more and really go. They have "wings" on top to help hold them down so they don't "take off". Kind of like reverse wings where the air flow holds the car down on the ground.

The cars also are very noisy. Think a cross between a dirt bike and an ATV. The track is just south of Jim's northern neighbor, John's, house. I imagine John is not happy about this. Me, the track is far enough back that it doesn't really bother me.

Space Station sighting

It was the International Space Station that I saw last night that I wrote about in my previous blog posting! Today my friend Jeff sent me a link to NASA's website where one can check for space station sightings over your city. I checked the website and the space station tonight and for the next week is at the location in the sky I saw it last night, and it can be seen close to the same times each night over the next week as when I saw it.

Here is the link so you can check for sightings in your area: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/

Thanks Jeff!

Pulling fence posts

My day...

9:30 am - got out of bed - exactly after 8 hours of sleep. I found the outside temperature was warm - already 50 degrees. Guess it didn't get cold last night. I uncovered my tomato, bell pepper, cabbage, and broccoli plants in my garden.

After a shower and breakfast I sewed a couple pair of pants. The previous day's pants where I tore out one knee and today's pair of pants which are heavily patched and needed more patching. I missed the new holes after washing them earlier.

11 am - I rode over to Tony's place to work more on the fences. I finished removing the wires from the old inner fences. Tony had more fence outside his new vinyl fence but either they were the neighbors fence, else he wanted to keep the other one as it was out of the way behind his vinyl fence fencing off a pond near the river.

We planned on pulling fence posts at 2 pm so after I removed all the wires I pulled a few metal posts that were in low marshy areas and not really accessible with a tractor. The marshy area made pulling the posts doable. Then I started to roll up the wire.

The barbed wire was a pain to roll up as I had not brought any gloves. My hands are a bit sore tonight as the barbs nicked me a few times. The barbless wire was slightly easier to roll up, but all the wires were twisted strands and I found my actions in rolling the wire would also twist the wire. I found the barbed wire would dig into the grass, and all wires would start to fight me more the more wire I rolled up. I rolled up some decent lengths of wire.

I had finished two sections and was working on the barbed wire of the third section when Tony came with his tractor. It must be 2 pm.

Tony had a rectangular piece of metal with two holes that hung from a chain attached to his tractor. I would slide this metal over the metal post and when Tony raised the tractor's loader the metal would catch on one of the post's knobs and the post would be pulled from the ground.

Tony has a smallish Kubota tractor - a good size fit for his property. Even so I was surprised that a few metal posts were hard to pull out of the ground.

One row of fence posts were between a vinyl fence and a slough. While I thought Tony's tractor could fit along the slough, he preferred to pull the posts from across the vinyl fence. These vinyl fences look nice, but I don't think they are very sturdy. I certainly would never have one of these vinyl fences to hold cattle. Horses don't test fences like cattle so they may be fine for horses. I also noticed the fence was looking black in areas close to trees. One may not have to paint these fences, but they "stain" and would have to be washed to maintain their whiteness.

I was careful with the chain and attaching it to the posts and no damage was done to the fence.

The old fences were two metal, one wood post. Once we pulled all the metal posts, Tony removed the metal piece and put a hook on the chain. Then we worked on the wood posts. These posts were much harder to pull. A few posts appeared to be 3 ft deep. I plan to take a tape measure and check the depth as some posts were deeper than I expected. The corner sections were thicker posts and among the deeper posts. Tony had to work his tractor to pull these posts. He would push and pull the posts with the tractor bucket in an effort to wiggle them in the ground, then pull up. Then repeat. Sometimes the left rear tire of his tractor would rise off the ground as the tractor had no weight in the back. I positioned the chain both right and left of center on the bucket but always the tractor would raise on the left side.

We worked our way along the slough as his tractor did fit. It was narrow at the second to last post. This was part of the corner post section and a thicker and deeper post. It would wiggle but not come out. Over and over Tony worked on the post. His tractor's bucket was inches from his vinyl fence and I watched that it didn't hit the fence. The ground had a slight slope and after a while the tractor started to slide towards the slough so I unhooked the chain and Tony repositioned the tractor to try again. I had the chain low on the post and high on the post and low on the post. Finally the post came out of the ground. We decided not to pull the last post as the ground was even narrower and the post was another thick one.

A few other thick posts we left: one we had no success in pulling out and two others that had gates attached to them. I plan to use a shovel to dig these posts halfway down and we will pull them another day.

After we pulled the posts I went back to rolling up wire and finished rolling up the barb wire strand. I rolled one of the barbless wires then called it quits for the day. I will roll up the remaining two strands along this fence, then the four strands of the longest fence tomorrow. I gathered up the posts along the slough and placed them in a pile where I can pick them up easily in my pickup later.

The wood posts are all in great condition with no signs of rot. No rust is on the metal posts or wire. The posts, wire, and gates are all very much worth the effort to remove.

I got home after 5 pm. Joyce had left a message on my answering machine about hiking tomorrow and I called her back. I will have to miss tomorrow's hike as I have an errand to run and can't move the date. I guess the group plans to hike the Boundary Trail. Last year at this time they hiked this trail and I missed that hike as I was replacing my hot water heater. I rarely miss the group's hikes, but this trail must have a hex on it that I miss it each year.

After eating "lunch" and watching the local news and weather I fell asleep. I am not sure why I was so tired as the tractor did all the hard work today. I woke up when my VCR turned on to record "Survivor" on TV.

When the tribal council was occurring on "Survivor" someone called me. "Not now!" I let the answering machine take the call in case it was a telemarketer. I am on the "do not call' list but non-profits and businesses one already use can still call you. My local phone company CenturyTel is extremely annoying with making calls trying to sell me another phone service feature. Whoever called did not leave a message so either it wasn't important or was a telemarketer.

Tonight the sky was partly cloudy. To the NW I saw a light. Initially I thought the light was a star until I saw it move fast across the sky. The speed at which the light moved was either a fast moving military jet, satellite, or the space station. Earlier in the day I saw a vapor trail from a high jet and saw how fast that jet moved.

I believe the light was a satellite or the space station. Most lightly the space station as I believe satellites are either over the equator for a gyro synchronous orbit, else when this far north they do a pole to pole orbit - as I have seen when in North Dakota. The light seemed to be following the U.S. / Canadian border from west to east. In the past when reports mentioned a chance of seeing the space station, the report mentioned looking in the area of the sky where I had seen the light tonight.

The clouds are high clouds and the light would disappear behind them as it moved across the sky. The light was a solid yellow/white, not the green or red that are on airplane wings. It did not blink like airplane lights do. Even when the light was to the NE I could still see it plainly which makes me think the sun that had just set a short time earlier was lighting up the object. It was neat to watch.

Now to eat supper, work on my blog, and try to get to bed earlier tonight.

Not too late to spray

A beautiful day today. I decided to spray weeds. If you remember the last time I sprayed it briefly rained lightly right afterwards. Today looking at what I had sprayed then, the herbicide appeared to have taken as most weeds were wilting. I do add a "sticker" agent to the herbicide to help the herbicide stick to the weed. It seems to work.

Today I sprayed the NE pasture and part of the north pasture. These are areas I have sprayed and resprayed this summer. I didn't quite cover the entire north pasture area that I had sprayed before, but I managed to cover most of it.

Some grass is greening up so that made spotting weeds a little harder than during the last few months. Still, I found a number of new weeds and a few I had missed before. By the time the second batch of herbicide ran out I was ready to quit. The 42 lbs the herbicide and tank weigh was making my shoulders sore. It is not all the herbicide's fault as I already was slightly stiff and sore from the previous few days of work.

The morning and early afternoon was sunny. A prefect Fall day. By the time I finished spraying the sky had clouded over in advance of a minor cold front that arrived this evening. At least it didn't start raining after I sprayed today.

I caught 4 pocket gophers today as they are again active. That makes 155 for the year so far. I am now beyond where I stopped trapping last year. With good weather I may be able to cover the entire hayfield this year. But we'll see.

Late afternoon I visited Tony. He had put up a white vinyl fence and is giving me his old fence - wood and steel posts and barb wire. Actually only the top wire is barbed, the other three wires are smooth. Horses, you know. We plan to pull the posts tomorrow using his tractor. Today I worked on taking the wires off the posts. Almost three hours later I was still not finished and had to quit as it was starting to get dark. The sun sets by 7 pm now. I don't have too many posts left to do and can do them tomorrow morning.

Car accident

Today I saw the aftermath of a violent car crash. I later learned the accident had occurred at 9:30 am. After 11 am I rode my bicycle uptown to run an errand. Apparently Hwy 2 was blocked off to traffic. As I was on my bicycle the route I had taken took me past where the highway was blocked off by the time I joined Hwy 2.

The car and pickup were still on the road so I rode through the parking lots of the string of businesses along the road. Lots of patrolmen and emergency people were standing around. The businesses are small so there were only a half dozen people standing outside the businesses watching.

As I rode past the crash site I saw two totaled vehicles. The car was flattened from the front. The Bronco (?) SUV was laying on its side nearby. The crash was pretty much head on. Hwy 2 is four lanes with a full turn lane between the two north and two south lanes. So this was more than just drifting a little over the center line. The southbound car ended up facing north.

The photo is from a news report.

The car was an unmarked highway patrol car. The driver died. The woman driving the SUV is in stable condition at the hospital. The news reported that the highway patrol said she wasn't wearing a seatbelt. The news didn't mention if the highway patrolman was wearing a seatbelt. The news and highway patrol always stress when a driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt when in an accident. I assume since he was a highway patrolman he was wearing a seatbelt. So either the news and highway patrol wants to downplay that seatbelts don't always work, or else they want to cover up that the patrolman wasn't wearing a seatbelt. When you look at the photo of the car the passenger compartment, while damaged, is intact. So if he was wearing his seatbelt you'd think he could have lived. Right?

After running my errand, when I returned I headed back towards the crash site. Again I rode my bicycle on the sidewalk and business parking lots on the southbound lane side. Two patrol officers standing and chatting on the northbound lanes started shouting at me well after I had passed their location on the road. *sigh* I turned around and rode over to talk to the one officer coming my way.

He was upset and started to chew me out until I told him:

• he was blocking the traffic and road on the northbound side, but not the sidewalk or the business lots on the other side of the road,
• I wasn't on the highway,
  
• No one stopped me when I rode through the other way only minutes earlier, including him,
  
• The detour was three miles on a narrow two lane road with no shoulders and not built to handle all the highway traffic now on it - and a dangerous place for me to ride my bicycle at that time,
• The safest place was for me to ride through the now empty business parking lots.
  

So where was I to ride? He had no answer but he wasn't letting anyone through, so he guessed I had to wait here until the highway was cleared, then I could ride on the highway. Huh?! Riding on a road after a traffic accident is just looking to get a flat tire on my bicycle. No way did I want to get near the accident scene. And who knew when the highway would be reopened.

So I stood there while he went back to talk with his buddy. You can't argue with cops even if they seem to be acting dumb. Especially around here. Recently in the local news were stories of police arresting people for disorderly conduct because a person flipped them off. And one guy criticized the local police in a blog and got arrested. The full story is here. The local police appear to have thin skins.

I went and leaned my bicycle against a business sign and stood on the sidewalk. Then I realized I could go near the railroad tracks behind the businesses and I pushed my bicycle over there. I ended up with weed seeds all over my pants and shoes from walking behind the businesses but I got well around the accident area and was able to ride home. Good thing too as on the 6 pm news they said the road was still partially blocked while the highway patrol was marking the accident site in an effort to reconstruct how the accident happened. I would have been standing there for hours waiting for the road and sidewalk to be reopened. When I had ridden by earlier everyone seemed to be just standing around and waiting and doing nothing. Also I heard that another accident later occurred on one of the detour roads.

Too much excitement and stupidity. I was just glad to be back home.