Cool weather

This is August and our high temperatures lately have ranged from the low 50s to the low 60s.  We reached 61 degrees today... woo hoo!   Tomorrow's high temperature is predicted to be 59 degrees and the weather forecasters are talking about snow in the mountains.

Tammy says "Brrrr!!!"

I am wearing a sweater and we wear coats when we go outside.     ...in August.  

I hear on the news that other areas have had hot weather.  But not here.  This is a year where we really didn't have summer.

Maybe global warming will come back next year and we can again enjoy summertime.

Spinach and Artichoke meal

Tammy made one of her Homemade Gourmet meals tonight: Spinach and Artichoke Chicken and Penne.

Yum!

What Tammy made is a variation of the spinach artichoke dip recipe.

For dessert Tammy made a Silky Chocolate Mousse Pie. Also yum!   I forgot to take a photo of the pie.

Yard Sale: Day 2

My yard sale is over.  Yee haw!

We finished the sale a short time before the rain came.  We planned to go until 4 pm but when a few scattered rain drops fell after 3:30 pm we started to pack up.  It didn't start raining in earnest until 7 pm.

Rain is good as the grass had dried up before the sale.  Add in the stress of people walking and cars driving on my front lawn and my lawn needed attention after the sale was over.

I expected more people on Saturday than Friday but that wasn't the case.  I don't know why.  Maybe it was because it was the second day.  Maybe it was because of the weather.  We woke Saturday morning to an overcast sky and cold temperatures.  The temperature was 42 degrees when we went outside to set up around 8:30 am.  The warmest the day got was 66 degrees.  The sun tried to break through the clouds at times in the afternoon.  Tammy sat with a blanket all day and had hot chocolate several times to warm up.  August in Montana.  Where's global warming when you need it?

I sold plenty of stuff but I also had plenty of stuff left.  I was able to sell a number of bulky oddly shaped stuff which was good as it was a pain to store them.

Some odd stuff I sold:

• my Australian hat with wooden pegs hanging from strings all around the hat to keep the flies away from one's face,

• an old trunk I planned to toss on the burn pile but put out anyway for the sale.  Tammy put a "make offer" sticker on the trunk and one guy offered $5 for the trunk.   Sold!

• My life-sized cutout poster of Marilyn Monroe that I had from my apartment in Rochester, MN,

• most of my dad's old RV stuff from when he sold RVS in the early 70s,

• several large ugly hanging lamps from the house.  A neighbor lady brought the ugly green lamp for her son who loves the "70s" look,

• miscellaneous oars I had found along the river over the years.   The woman who bought them said her kids float the rivers and constantly are losing oars,

• the two boxes of wine bottles I had saved over the years for when I would learn to make my own wine.  I'm sure I'll save enough bottles by the time I'll ever learn to make wine.

One guy clued Tammy in the first day of the sale about all the copper and brass plumbing fittings that I had for sale.  He told Tammy I'd get more money selling them at a recycling place than at the yard sale.

One family said they would buy the bundle of insulation and would be back once they visited the bank to get cash.  I offered to take a check but they said they had to come back with a pickup anyway so they would bring cash then.  They never came back.

That's it for the year.  I do have more buildings and rooms to go through and I am sure I'll have enough stuff for a sale next year.

Yard Sale: Day 1

We survived the first day of the yard sale.   It was an early start to the morning for us as we had to be setup by 9 am when our sale started.  We had lots of tables and boxes and stuff to cart out from the garage, bunk room, and house to the front yard.

Our first customer was here a quarter to nine as we were setting stuff out.  I was still setting stuff out after 9 am.

It was relatively busy in the morning and early afternoon and then died down as the afternoon went on.  We packed up for the day before 6 pm.

We got rid of a good amount of stuff including some stuff we were unsure would sell.  We still have lots of junk stuff left.

Tomorrow is another day.   Tammy is threatening deep discounts to get stuff sold.  (strike that... she says "I'm not threatening... it's gonna happen."

Yard sale stuff

Tammy and I are going through stuff so we can hold a yard sale this Friday and Saturday to get rid of some of my junk stuff.

Monday we went through the bunk house room to clean and organize it.  I expected the bunk house room to take a long time and I was right.  On Tuesday, before Tammy and I attended the Picnic in the Park concert, we tackled the garage.  I thought it would only take an hour or so to go through the garage and we spent hours on it.

Wednesday we worked on the main floor of the house and Thursday we went through part of the basement.  The basement is a big project and one that will be completed another time.  We had a bunch of stuff to sell and decided to quit sorting through the basement and move to working on setting up the tables and pricing items. Most of the stuff had been placed on tables and priced by the time it got dark.

We have it mostly stored in the garage overnight in prep for a 9 am start tomorrow.  Hopefully I get rid of most of the junk stuff this weekend.

The temperature reached 97 on Thursday.  It was warm but didn't feel that warm.  A front is passing through tonight and that is keeping the temperature high (still 72 degrees near midnight!) while lightning occasionally flashes in the distance.  Friday's high is predicted to be 68 degrees (when one discounts the high temperature just after midnight).  As long as we don't get rain the next several days and the weather doesn't keep people away from the yard sale.

In addition to getting stuff to sell I am building a large burn pile for when we have bonfires later.  This photo is just of stuff for the bonfire that we got out of the bunk house room (the door in the center of the photo).  The bunk house room is less than half of the garage.

Picnic Park music

Tuesday night Tammy and I headed into Kalispell to attend the final Picnic in the Park concert of the season.  The band playing was the Tropical Montana Marimba Ensemble.  They are a local group of musicians who mainly play percussion instruments and melodies from the tropics to Africa.  You can sample some of their music on cdbaby.

The music was fun and lively - though to Tammy most of the songs sounded the same.  I was imagining sea breezes and margaritas.

At the concert was my neighbor who was having problems with the beavers and their dam.  She and her son had to clear the dam last weekend as Bonneville Power appears to be refusing to own up to maintaining their culvert.  At least it appears the beavers haven't rebuilt the dam since then which may give the lawyers time to solve the problem of maintenance.

Also at the concert was Gary.  I hadn't seen him in almost a year when he and I hiked up to Heavan's Peak lookout.

Lastly the concert organizers celebrated Scott Johnston's birthday and made him a birthday outfit.  The back of the cape said "Birthday Boy".  I missed getting a photo of the back.

While the days have been warm the temperature drops as soon as the sun goes down and Tammy was cold by the time the concert ended after dark.  It is hard to remember to bring a sweater or jacket when a few hours earlier it was hot.

A day at the fair

Sunday Tammy and I visited the NW Montana fair in Kalispell.   In addition to checking out the vendor's building to see what home businesses were represented (four of them), we checked out several of the horse races.

After a three year absence horse racing returned the the fair on Saturday and Sunday.  The crowd on Sunday seemed ok, though it was easy to find seats under the grandstand to watch the races.   The races we saw were ok but it seemed like more time was spent waiting for a race than in watching them.

It was the last day of the fair and there were no crowds.  The Kalispell fair is small and not too exciting.  Especially to a guy who grew up in North Dakota and attended the ND State fair in Minot in addition to visiting the MN and Western Washington state fairs.  Even the county fair in Rochester, MN had more pizazz.

We did see a group of people dressed up in theme with their llamas.  We were not sure why.  One lady was dressed as Middle Eastern princess and her llama was dressed up to look like a camel.  One boy and his llama were dressed alike.

Huckleberry Tammy

Tammy arrived on the train Saturday night and Sunday and I made her huckleberry pancakes for breakfast.  I had picked some huckleberries during my hike to Strawberry Lake on Thursday.  I had gotten the huckleberries before the black bear did.

Short term memory, partially blind, water

I am starting to wonder about my short term memory.   Earlier this week I moved one of my pocket gopher traps to my fruit tree and garden area to catch a pocket gopher that was digging around my nectarine tree and also in my strawberry garden.  I left the milk jug and post where I last had this trap in the hayfield as I didn't need to mark the new spot in the garden area.

After I caught the garden gopher I returned the trap to the hayfield.  But not to the original spot with the milk jug and post.  While walking there I came across fresh dirt mounds in an area I had already trapped.  I placed my trap there. Seeing as how it was easy to find I didn't mark the spot.

Big mistake!

Last evening after my Strawberry Lake hike I checked my traps.  I was almost to my seventh trap location when I remembered I had placed the trap at the unmarked location.  I went to where I thought I left the trap and couldn't find it.  The spot I thought I left the trap had gopher dirt mounds as it was another area I have to go back to re-trap. This spot was on the way to the first trap.

I couldn't remember exactly where I left the trap.  I walked around and around. I even did a grid search pattern to no avail.  I had to quit when it got too dark to see.

Friday morning I checked again to no avail.  What was more frustrating was I could not re-think my earlier steps and remember where I put the trap. All for something I had done just a little over a day earlier.  Eventually I decided to try searching the area between the house and the seventh trap.  Bingo.  I found the trap.   The pocket gopher had buried the trap so I cleared it and then this time got a milk jug and post to mark the location.

Over an hour of searching and a good distance of walking because I didn't originally mark the spot.


The partially blind horse needs to keep track of the other horses better.  She was in the corral and the other horses were in the middle pasture.  When she went out to join the other horses the blind horse just missed the gate.  I believe it was because she is blind in the left eye and that is the direction she approaches the gate from the corral.  The horse walked along the fence until she found the other horses.  Then she walked back near the fence towards the gate.  Somehow she missed the gate again.  This time the horse "seen" her error shortly after missing the gate the second time and turned and went through the gate to join the other horses.

The horses have traveled between the corral and middle pasture enough now that a trail has been created.  One would think the partially blind horse would follow the trail but she veers off just before the gate.  *shrug*


The beaver(s) dammed up the culvert real good.  This afternoon I seen the water now completely covers the culvert.  Apparently Bonneville Power has not come and cleaned out the beaver dam from their culvert.  I left it for them.

Instead I cut half the branches off the last tree to fall over in the pasture.  Then I went for a swim in the river.  The river level is dropping and the water has cleared.  Initially the water felt cool on a hot day but then quickly felt good.

I dream on two wheels

Ironically this looks like it will be my lowest mileage year on a bicycle since I began riding seriously as an adult way back in 1977.  I haven't even ridden 100 miles yet this year.  Too much other stuff going on, and my bicycle is old and tired and in need of replacement.

Broken fence

My fence on one side of a gate was broken Tuesday.  I think the partially blind horse did it.   In the afternoon I noticed the four horses were out in the middle pasture and the partially blind horse was in the corral.

Then the partially blind horse went out into the north pasture.  Later I heard it whinny to call the others.  Then when I checked my pocket gophers traps I saw the one horse in the north pasture near the fence with the other four nearby in the middle pasture.

The last I saw, the one horse was making its way along the fence towards the open gate.

Then when I went out to spray weeds late afternoon I found this...

I wonder if the partially blind horse missed the gate? That is my only explanation since the open gate is wide enough for several horses to pass through at the same time.

I guess I know what I will be fixing for part of Wednesday. 

Beaver dam in a culvert

Saturday morning I removed much of a beaver dam in the creek across the road.  Most years the beavers try to dam the creek and the neighbor's yard gets partially flooded.   I learned last week that the couple who own the home along the creek are now divorced and she is the one who kept the house.  Since the creek was really flooding now I went over to check out the dam and see if I could help her.

The dam is actually on another neighbor's property, an absentee landowner/developer.   This section of the property is unusable due to the creek and the overhead transmission lines.  Therefore nothing is done with the land and it is becoming a weed patch.  I used the rake I carried to knock off the seed heads of some of the Canadian thistle.

I also got rid of most of the bull thistle...

I pulled out most of the Great Mullein...

The spotted knapweed I left alone as there was too much to make any difference...

There were also stands of cocklebur plants and I tried to avoid them.  Still I had to pull the Velcro like seeds off my shoes and/or pants after I got home each day.

I also wore rubber boots as some of the property was flooded.  Another reason to remove the dam was that the standing water was a mosquito factory.  There were mosquitoes there and it was almost noon on a sunny day.

I discovered the culvert was underwater by several inches.  The beavers has made their dam inside half the culvert and in front of it.  Using my rake I began to pull some of the branches and bushes from the water.  After a bit I opened an area and the water began to pour through the culvert.

Once the water level began to drop below the top of the culvert I grew more confident standing on its rounded top.   I pulled more and more branches, bushes, weeds and grasses from the culvert using my rake and hands.  I spent a few hours and removed much of the dam.  I couldn't reach the material in the middle of the culvert even when laying on the culvert and reaching in with my rake.  I didn't feel like getting in the creek and entering the culvert.  As the water level wasn't too different on each side of the remainder of the dam I decided to call it a day.  I was tired.

In the past the beavers were quick to repair their dams.  Monday I checked the culvert again and could see where the beavers were adding more branches, bushes, weeds and grass to the dam.  I worked some at removing the new material when Judy, the neighbor lady, came over.

I learned she had removed the dams three times so far this past month.  She would enter the culvert from the downstream side and pull the material out until the water started to rush out.  She also go a number of spider bites.  So she was very grateful I removed much of the dam on Saturday.

A difference this year is that the beavers are rebuilding a completely dismantled dam in the culvert over and over.  In past years when the culvert dam was completely removed the beavers would then move to another section of the creek to build another dam.

Judy also learned that since the culvert was placed there by Bonneville Power to allow access over the creek under their transmission lines they are responsible for clearing and maintaining the culvert.  They are suppose to come out and clear the culvert.

Judy also had some young guys who would trap the beavers for them each year.  Because they also sell the fur they do not want to trap the beavers until cooler weather later this Fall when the fur would be sell-able.  Right now the fur is not worth anything.

For some reason the beavers are starting their activity a month or two earlier than usual.  I did hear somewhere the other day that someone is predicting an early winter here.  Oh, joy.

While I stood and talked with Judy near the dam we could see ripples in the water where the beaver(s) swam down to see what was happening with their dam.  Because we were there they wouldn't completely approach the dam, but clearly seemed to be annoyed.

Here is the culvert Monday afternoon when I came to check on it.

Here is the view inside the culvert.  Keep in mind on Saturday this was plugged with material that I removed and what you see now is the new material since then.  It may not look like much but it is impeding the water flow pretty good.

Horse sleeping

Earlier I had mentioned how the horses sleep in the afternoon.  Here is a photo of one of the fillies sleeping.  She slept so hard I could hear her snore.

Also, I cleaned out the water trough Saturday night.  Horses are so sloppy.  They keep dropping grass and stuff in the water trough when they drink.  Cattle are not so messy.  With cattle I clean the water trough in the Spring before they arrive and then at the end of the season.  The five horses have been here a little over a month and the water already had a green hue from the decaying grass.

Weed cutter

Well... I now have a name for my weed cutting implement.... a weed cutter.   Duh! 

Thanks to my Uncle Larry in pointing me in the right direction to finding out the name.

http://www.amazon.com/Ames-True-Temper-Deluxe-1945000/dp/B00004S1RZ/ref=pd_sim_ol_3

Cutting knapweed

I am cutting the knapweed in the north pasture. Unlike cattle who will eat knapweed before it flowers, horses seem to avoid it.  Still, since the horses are pastured here I don't want to spray herbicide on the weeds.  While Brash is touted as safe for livestock, and I do spot spray, the herbicide is still a chemical. 

It appears my spray campaign last year worked on the rest of the weeds as there are less of them - including knapweed in other pastures, and almost no sage is left.  But the north pasture knapweed is thick as ever.  This may be because the cattle ate much of it down last year preventing all of it from being sprayed effectively later.  Also I still am working with the effects of seeds from prior years.

Another exception to "less weeds this year" is clover.  I thought I had gotten rid of it a few years ago.  But it is back with a vengeance this year.  Especially in my yard.   My neighbor noticed the same thing with clover in his yard.  Perhaps the wet cool year had something to do with this.


I am using this to cut the knapweed.  I don''t know what to call it as it doesn't look like a sickle or scythe.  I'll call it my "cutter".  It does a decent job of cutting the weeds.

Swinging my "cutter" is hard work especially as some of the knapweed has grown tall, thick and with good sized stalks.  I have spent a number of hours each of the past several days cutting knapweed and it gets tiring.

Cut knapweed and what remains to be cut.

Closer view

Close view of the flowers

The bees are loving the flowers.  It is a shame to have to cut the weeds and deprive the bees a source of food, but knapweed is nasty and I am better off without it.

Gophers and horses

I have now trapped 1400 pocket gophers since I started late 2003.  Woo Hoo!

The horses finally seem to be melding into one group.  Last night they all shared the loafing shed.  The previous night the two outsiders still had to stand just outside of the loafing shed.

I seldom saw cattle lay down and sleep hard in the middle of the day.  When they did they often would curl up like a cat.  These horses lay on their side and several often take a nap in the middle of the afternoon when the group is taking their afternoon siesta in the loafing shed.  The horses that sleep do so just outside the loafing shed and in the hot sun.  And they sleep hard as often they don't move when I move about corral or just outside of it. The horses still get my attention when they sleep like this as I think something may be the matter with them.

In Bob and Jan's yard today their son cut down four dead and dying trees.  Mostly birch trees.   The son didn't want the birch logs so I got them when I came to get the trees branches.  The logs filled over half my pickup box.   I'll dry them a year and split them next summer.

I ended up hauling three loads of branches in my pickup and dumped them in a low area in my pasture.  Now that it has been four or five days since I sprayed the weeds in the NE pastures I let the horses go into that pasture to make it easier for me to drive through the corral and in the north pasture.  I don't have my rancher girl here to handle the gates and to watch that the horses don't go where they shouldn't.

Jan fed me a couple hamburgers as thanks for hauling the branches away for them.  I needed the food as between chopping weeds, hauling branches, and our hot 86 degrees I have been sweating buckets.

I noticed a "new" dent on the side of my pickup.  I don't remember it from something I did.  Hmmmm?  Did someone else bump my pickup?  The dent was on the side behind the rear wheel.  No room to swing a sledgehammer to knock it out.  Instead I used a jack and the pressure from that in multiple places to push the dent mostly out.  It looks better.   Still, my pickup is a working vehicle - and looks it - as it not a show piece or a fancy passenger vehicle.

North Dakota Alpacas

Doesn't the alpaca in this photo remind you of a cartoon animal?  Maybe something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon?

Here is a link to the story about a couple raising alpacas in North Dakota.

Here is a link to the couple's web site.

More rain

It is nice when it rains in August.  Maybe it will keep forest fires at bay this year.

Saturday night we had a little rain so I gave in and spent half of Sunday mowing my entire yard.  This time of the year when I cut the lawn it usually turns brown as it is so dry.  My lawn needed a mowing so I decided to go for it.  A good thing I did as Monday it rained good.  This should help my lawn recover from the mowing.

The only downside - and it is a small one - is that I had sprayed one tank of herbicide on weeds this afternoon and the rain started a half hour after I finished spraying.  The herbicide company recommends spraying at least four hours before it rains.  I think the window is smaller than four hours as the herbicide can dry pretty quickly.

I thought the rain shower would be brief so I sat in my patio.  Soon pea sized soft hail began to fall.  After that let up I then heard intermittent sounds of larger hail.  After a bit it grew more common. The size of this hail was marble sized.

The noise became quite loud under the fiberglass panels that made up the patio roof.

It also rained hard as water was standing for a while after it finally quit raining.  That ended my weed spraying for the day.

While spraying I came across what appeared to be a garter snake.  The snake was motionless with its neck and head up off the ground.  I rarely see snakes where I live.  I think this was only the second snake I've seen in eight years here.

Political views map

My friend Francis passed this quiz on to me...

So, you think you know where you stand, politically? The result from this short test may surprise you and give you some food for thought.

You'll be asked just 10 questions, and then it instantly tells you where you stand politically. It shows your position as a red dot on a "political map" so you'll see exactly where you score.

The most interesting thing about the Quiz is that it goes beyond the Democrat, Republican, and Independent categories.

The Quiz has gotten a lot of praise. The Washington Post said it has "gained respect as a valid measure of a person's political leanings." The Fraser Institute said it's "a fast, fun, and accurate assessment of a person's overall political views." Suite University said it is the "most concise and accurate political quiz out there."

http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html


Here is where I stand depending on how I answer a couple of the questions differently.

or...

Green and mean?

Do Green Products Make Us Better People was published in the April 2010 issue of Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the "halo of green consumerism" are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. "Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours," they write.

According to the study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behavior", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics".

The pair found that those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honor system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.

We find that mere exposure to green products and the purchase of them lead to markedly different behavioral consequences. In line with the halo associated with green consumerism, people act more altruistically after mere exposure to green than conventional products. However, people act less altruistically and are more likely to cheat and steal after purchasing green products as opposed to conventional products.