Night sky light

Here is a photo of the night sky from the same view of my previous sunset photos.  The glow is from the commercial district built this decade north of town. Usually the lights are not so bright, but it may be brighter tonight because of the atmospheric conditions.  Snowy night.

Kalispell has a lighting ordinance to reduce light pollution but I read today that many business are still not in compliance.  Home Depot is a major source of the light in the photo.

Gathering logs from my pasture

Last Friday, the day before the snow came, I went out into my pastures and collected the logs I had cut up earlier before the cold came.  I got a pickup load from each pasture, though not all pickup loads were completely full.

One of my chores for next year...   Keep in mind the stack is two logs deep.

Here is one tree cut and stacked in the pasture, and then after it and another tree were loaded into my pickup.  Notice in the background of the pickup one of the trees resting on branches waiting to be cut next year.

Warmth from my stove

With this recent cold weather my wood stove is nicer than ever.  After a hard day of shoveling snow I curl up in front of the stove like a cat seeking warmth.

Sunsets then snow

Winter arrived this weekend.  Light snow started Saturday morning and picked up by afternoon becoming heavy.  At sunset the wind arrived and blew strong all night.  And the temperature stayed in the single digits most of the weekend.

Saturday morning when the snow started, I put into paper bags and stored away, the remaining branches I use as kindling to start fires in my wood stove.  I've learned from past years that having the branch pile sit under my patio doesn't protect it from getting buried by snow on a windy day.  They would have been buried by Sunday morning.

We had 7.5 inches of snow. I think the snow will be staying until Spring.  Sunday I shoveled the snow off half my yard/driveway.   My body felt it as I haven't shoveled snow since this past Spring.

Here is Wednesday night's sunset and Friday night's sunset.

More of Friday's sunset.  Then Saturday night's "sunset".

Frosty mornings

It's warming up!   ...a little.    Today we made it just into the double digits above zero for a high and it looks like our low overnight will stay above zero.

Tuesday morning's low was -13 F.   A number of my windows had frost on them.

 

Cold temperatures meant sunny skies on Tuesday.

The white mountains past Badrock Canyon are in Glacier Park.

Tuesday's sunset saw the first signs of clouds.  It was overcast by morning.  And still cold.

Even though it was cloudy with a touch of light snow, my part of the Valley had sun breaks during the day.  Here is Wednesday night's sunset.

Cold continues

Another cold day where the high temperature officially made it to 11 degrees.   My thermometer never made it out of the single digits.  The temperature now is heading south and is a degree shy of the minus double digits.   The official temperature Monday was 11 and -3. Our normal high is 31 and normal low is 17.  Oh yeah!  Global warming baby!

Other than getting more firewood I only went outside to run and quickly check my gopher traps. No activity there.  That gopher is laying low in a lower warmer level of his tunnel complex.  Smart gopher.

Doesn't it look cold in the photos?

I want my global warming!   Remember what George Carlin said about "military intelligence"?  Substitute the words 'global warming'.  No wonder those controversial emails turned up in Britain about global warming.

Baby, it's cold outside

Today I made sure the wood stove was going.  The outside temperature slowly slid all day from 12 degrees to zero right now.  And that is not factoring in the wind chill.  The house temperature was in the low 50s when I got up but I had it up at high as 73 degrees this evening.  It is 67 now. I love my wood stove.

I did go outside for a little while to check on my gopher trap.  It was too cold even for the gopher as the trap was not filled with dirt today.  Yesterday I had to move the trap as the gopher filled the trap and the tunnel so solid I couldn't see where the tunnel used to be.  The ground was frozen so hard I had to find another spot to dig for the tunnel.

Today I brought a second trap. I bent the metal shovel blade trying to dig through the frozen ground.  Eventually I noticed a few dirt mounds under a nearby tree's rain shadow.  The ground wasn't nearly as frozen there and I was able to quickly find and dig a place to set the trap.

Hopefully I get this gopher sooner than later.

While out in the pasture, on nearby trees, I decided to cut off some low dead tree branches.  I got about a dozen cut before I called it a day.  Even wearing my new leather gloves my hands froze and I ran home to hold them near my wood stove to warm back up.  My wood stove is great at getting the chill out of one's bones.

Working with a chainsaw

Even though Winter is here - and getting stronger - I got out my chainsaw and cut up four downed trees in my pastures Friday and Saturday.  The other day I had finally finished splitting the logs I had stacked in the backyard and it was time to get more logs for next year.

The temperature was cold but I found wearing ear muffs was good for chainsaw noise reduction.  And the work kept me warm.  Come to think about it I sweat buckets when cutting in the summertime, so I guess cold is better.

I cut up the rest of one large tree and then three other medium sized trees.  The large tree was in the north pasture and one I had been slowly cutting up a number of years now.

Two medium trees were in the middle pasture and the other one in the south pasture.

Mainly I wanted to cut up two of the trees as they were laying on the ground.  The others were supported by their branches and in no danger of rotting.

One tree had fallen into another tree and I was concerned it would fall on cattle someday.  That turned out to be baseless as it was difficult to get the tree down.  The top branches intermingled with the live trees branches and it took a bit of cutting from the bottom to shorten the tree enough that I could then maneuver the trunk enough for the tree to fall out of the other tree.

I have fallen six trees left to cut up (one medium and five large trees), but as they all are supported by their branches and off the ground I can wait until next year. To use up the gas in the chainsaw I cut the smaller (top) parts of each of these trees to shorten their footprint length.

I stacked the logs in the pasture as I had a little daylight left.  I also was concerned the weather would really turn bad, and before Winter set in I wouldn't get the logs picked up and brought back to the backyard for splitting later.  I have enough logs already split to last me several winters so I can split these logs at my leisure.  And I am close to running out of room to store my split logs.

Here are photos of the north tree. The tree's diameter was so thick I had to cut from each side as my saw's 16 inch bar wouldn't go all the way through.  It's going to be some 'fun' splitting these logs.

The tree had blown over in a windstorm and this is the bottom of the stump.  I left it.   It was pain to cut and then I realized it made a decent place to sit.  And my north pasture hardly has any decent stumps for the cattle to scratch against.

The second photo was taken because I had taken photos of other piles of stacked logs.

Here is a photo of one of the south pasture's stacked log piles.  These logs are from the tops of trees I had cut.  The pile is a little bigger than it looks.

Here are the one of the log piles from the middle pasture.   The height is taller than me - over 6 ft.

Sharpened stakes

Our weather is still well below freezing.  The ground is getting even harder.  Today the one pocket gopher left to trap again filled the trap with dirt. I decided to move the trap up his tunnel a bit to confuse the gopher.  When I dug the ground I had to really work and chip away at the frozen ground.  I hope I get this gopher soon as the weather forecast this weekend and next week has an Arctic front coming with snow and then sub-zero temperatures and wind with wickedly cold wind chills.   North Dakota and Minnesota type of wind chills.

On my to-do list before Winter was to mark the locations of the tree stumps in the pasture so I can easily find them for later digging and burning.  Quite a number of them are less than a foot above ground and most of the year the grass hides them. I cut the ends of almost 20 boards to sharpen them in order to make it easier to drive them into the ground.  However, by the time I got the boards sharpened the weather changed and the ground is now too hard to pound the posts into it. I guess this is now an early Spring project.

Hayfield cleared

Maybe "cleared" is a bold statement.  I have gone over the entire hayfield trapping pocket gophers as I trapped my final one Thursday.  This is the first time I have gone over the entire hayfield.  Why I say "cleared" is a bold word is that there may be some pocket gophers that I missed.  In fact the last few gophers I trapped were in areas I had gone over earlier and thought I had cleared until I saw what I thought were new dirt mounds.

With this last pocket gopher trapped in the hayfield I also pulled all but two of my traps from the south pasture. Even though the ground is freezing, and the temperature ranges from the single digits to near 20 above, I am still catching gophers as I trapped three on Thursday. And while I have cleared over half of the south pasture the quickly freezing ground is making it hard to dig to find more tunnels.  There is always next year.

I currently am at 249 pocket gophers trapped for the year.  I am confident I will make it to 250 as one of the traps I left in the south pasture had been filled with dirt the past day indicating activity.

Bob's dead birch tree

Using my "new" chainsaw, last weekend I cut down two of Bob's birch trees that were dead or dying.  I got more firewood to stack and dry for splitting next year.

Moon over the mountains

Monday at sunset I was out in the south pasture near the southern fence line when I noticed the very close to full moon rising over the Swan Mountain Range.   The snow covered mountains were a rosy pink from the sunset and the moon was huge as it first rose.  It was beautiful and I wanted a photo of it.

Though I only had minutes in which to get a photo I ran all that distance home and got my camera.  The pink was fading fast, and I missed the best color, but I got a couple photos off before it was completely gone.  Then I was left with the moon rising over white mountains.

 

The one photo shows the moon from where I first seen it rise.  Trust me, the moon looked much bigger in person and when it first rose over the mountains.

Later, after dark when I went outside the moon was so bright it was almost like being outside during the day.

News IQ test

There is a 12 question test from the Pew Research Center of your recent news knowledge.   *pat myself on my back*  I got all twelve questions correct.

Click here to take the quiz.

Shrubbery - then and now

I found a photo of my house's shrubbery from 2003 before I started cutting down their height.

The end result...

You can see that in addition to the shrubbery around the house, the willow tree took a hit over the years as it was starting to die off and I then cut it back.

Black Friday and movies

I didn't get up early for the Black Friday sales.  In fact I barely made the 11 am cutoff for a couple of the early "early bird" sales.  I had only one item in mind and that store had an all day sale so I made the Army/Navy Surplus store my last stop.

The one item... a pair of gaiters.  Here is a link to the company's web site with the gaiters I bought.  The ones I bought are all black as no other color choices were available at the store.  I hemmed and hawed at getting this style as the store had another style by the same company which was cheaper.  But I decided to get the fancier version as it seemed more durable.  I plan to use the gaiters when cross country skiing and snowshoeing this winter, though they also would come in handy if I end up bushwhacking through heavy brush like I did to the Heaven's Peak lookout.

Overall it seemed like less people were out and about, and they didn't seem as manic as in other years, but since I went to the stores later it was hard to compare the crowds to other years.

Oh, there was one other item I was interested in getting if it was still available.  That was a DVD copy of the movie, "Across the Universe".  I like the music by The Beatles and this movie is an imaginative story using a number of The Beatles' songs.  I bought the last copy Best Buy had.

I also picked up a copy of "The Dark Knight" and "The Princess Bride".  Ying and yang, male and female style of movies.

Other than getting some tools on sale at Ace Hardware, that was it for my Black Friday shopping.  I don't want or need much.

All that shopping must have worn me out as that evening after watching the movie, "Coraline", I quickly fell asleep.  And that was a few hours before I normally go to sleep.

Fog, fence and apples

The valley inversions are back.  Thursday's fog didn't burn off until 2 pm and started to come back by sundown a few hours later.   Last night was very foggy and the visibility was only a quarter of a mile.  Even so when I looked up in the night sky I could see the half moon.  The moon was cool looking with a white circle around it due to the fog.  Only the moon was visible.  No stars could be seen which added to the strange effect.

I put the fence back up now that I am done cutting on that tree.  I fixed the board that was broken when I had cut the box elder branch.  I had to replace one board.  Guess which one?

I completed my tree trimming for the year as I pruned the apple tree out in the pasture.  This is the tree that may never have been pruned as it was very tall.  I started the pruning this Spring, and Thursday I brought down the height even more.  The tree is still tall as I had to stand on a step ladder and use a pole start to reach to cut the branch.  But at least now I have a chance next year to reach most of the apples on the tree.   On the branch I cut were lots of old apples that for some reason never fell to the ground and were way too high for me to reach.

Sawdust

The chainsaw works!  Hurray!

The chainsaw is an old model.  It doesn't have the little plastic bulb to prime the saw before starting.  Pulling the rope and working the choke got it started.

When it ran, the "bup-bup" engine's sound reminded me of a Harley Davidson motorcycle.  I may call it "Harley".

You know what?  Does a chainsaw for left handed people exist?  I've always used a right handed chainsaw and I wonder if a left handed one would feel right to me.

I went to work on the part of the box elder tree I had cut down last week.  It is now all cut up and stacked for drying and splitting next year. Four wheelbarrow loads to move what I cut today.  It is so nice to have one of the projects on my "Before Winter" to-do list done.

I now have trimmed all the shrubs and trees around the house, pruned the apple trees, and trimmed the box elder trees in the fruit tree and garden area and the ones next to the pole shed.  It is easier to do now when the sap is down, and when the leaves are gone and I can see the branches to get an idea on how to shape the trees.  Also when leaves are on I find it hard to be ruthless and end up leaving more branches on the tree than I should.

*whew!*

Another item off my list and nothing new to add to the list.  For once my list is shrinking.  I am down to a dozen items.  Many I know I won't get to before snow.  I.e. finish painting.

I have the cut branches piled around the yard and need to haul them out to the pasture. Ooops... wait... I better get that done quick else I'll have another item to add to my to-do list. 

Happy Thanksgiving Day everyone!

Juggling chainsaws

I woke up to snow again this morning.  *sigh*  At least it had stopped snowing by the time I got out of bed and most of the snow was gone by sundown.

It was a gray blah overcast day.  Not every day here is a great day.

On the drive home this afternoon from running errands uptown the route I chose had a downed transmission line that took out power to the NW area of town.  My route was closed as the downed line was across it.  The stoplights were out and the traffic was backed up.  Since I couldn't take my road I had to drive north a few more miles before I found a road that went over to where I wanted to go.

I have another chainsaw.   I had taken my old chainsaw into Terry's because the chain kept jumping the bar.   The chain adjuster was broken inside and out.  He had trouble finding the part and felt the final repair cost would be over $100.  I could buy a brand new replacement chainsaw for $150.

His hourly labor rate for repairs is $65 an hour.  Not bad work if you can get it.  The cost for the estimate was $25.   In exchange for payment I had the option of giving him my broken chainsaw.  While the chainsaw's engine was very good, I had no use for a broken chainsaw.   I agreed if I could keep the chainsaw's bar.  I had just bought a new one and installed it.  He agreed.  I imagine he gets more chainsaws with bad engines than bad bars.

I asked Bob to watch ads in the newspaper for chainsaws on sale.   Bob said he had an old chainsaw I could have.  He hadn't used it in years but it ran excellently when he did last use it.  He said the fuel line had rotted and needed replacing.  Bob also felt the chain was unbalanced as it had two identical links in a row and caused the chainsaw to give an extra bite when those links came around.

Terry said it was common for chains to be like this and no repair/change necessary for it.   Apparently the fuel line was fine as the work he ended up doing was to put in a new spark plug, new gas, an O ring on the gas cap and then adjust the carburetor.  If that was all it was I could have done that.   It cost me $42.  Well... it is cheaper than a new chainsaw.

Tomorrow I will see how the chainsaw runs.

Snow

I woke up to snow Sunday morning.  I looked over at one of my bedroom windows and saw white against my red house facia.  Guess the weather forecasters finally got it right.

It didn't snow much - less than an inch - but it snowed lightly all day.  Enough snow fell to coat everything and the snow remained all day.  So I made today an indoor day and didn't do anything outside.  I baked an apple pie.