Happy New Years

Friday, January 1, 2010 - Happy New Years to Everyone

            Well, here we are starting a new year and I truly hope it is the best year ever for everyone. My weather on this first day of 2010 is bright and not as cold as past mornings. The low was 15 degrees and the snow stopped sometime early this morning, leaving me with about a foot of new snow on top of the other, giving me about three feet of snow around the cabin. This is more than I’ve had in the past, with more promised before winter warms to spring. Damn that global warming!

            Does anyone out there still really believe in the lies of global warming and that man is causing the problem? If you do, please educate yourself and see that the earth has always had cycles and this is just one of them.

            I worked on several projects, inbetween playing with Zack, cleaning up Rusty’s sawdust mess and letting Zoey stake out a mouse on the deck. Due to the limited room in my cabin, I chose to put the 40 lb. bag of sunflower seeds along with the 50 lb. bag of birdseed out on the deck. I knew that if the mice found it, they will chew a hole in the bags and help themselves, but once completely covered with snow and frozen, I thought they would be deterred. Well, the other morning, after the fresh snow covered the deck, I saw mice tracks leading to the bags and when I let Zoey out, she smelled the mouse and just froze in position, hoping to pounce on it.

            After a considerable amount of time, she got too cold to keep the vigilance and wanted back in. This morning, when the sun came out, it was actually            above freezing and warm, so she took up her watch for over an hour before wandering off in search of more interesting things to do.

            Zack managed to pack down the new snow and make a nice path out to the tree line, where I consistently throw the disc. He loves to get it in the powdery snow and pounces on it like it was prey. Once and a while, he will bury it deeper and then have to dig and search for it, but in general he just enjoys it.

            I got out the sewing machine in hopes of repairing or rebuilding one of Zack’s older discs that has several large holes in it. I purchased some rip-stop nylon material while I was in town the other day, and hope to keep the disc serviceable, as they are now $22.00 and rising. I ended up having to rip out all of the nylon stitching and try to cut a new piece of rip-stop material and insert it into the ring that supports the center. It is much more work than I thought it would be, so even if this turns out well, I think I’ll just sew patches over the holes and let it go at that.

            I also worked on an ongoing project, which is a walking staff. I have collected several good sized limbs along with some old dead trees that never got larger than about 2 1/2” in diameter, so I am using a draw knife to strip off the outer layer and then trimming and decorating them as nice sturdy hiking poles. It is a messy project, so it takes almost as much time to clean up as it did to do the trimming and carving.

            Along with all of the above, I also did two loads of wash, made the bed with clean linens and put all the clothes away. I will now shower and fix myself some dinner, having already fed the others. I am now starting off the New Year clean.

PS - I am having some camera problems and right now none of them are working, so I won’t be able to send photos until I resolve the issue.

Week of Dec. 28 to Dec. 31

Monday, December 28, 2009

            By midnight last night, the low of the night registered at -6.6 and actually started getting warming towards the morning hours.

            I worked around the cabin doing this and that, playing outside with Zack several times and giving Zoey and Rusty some attention, enjoying a fire and working on the computer.

            Not a very exciting or productive day, but the pressure of Christmas now behind me, I feel lazy and just want to relax, so I am.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

            It is overcast and snowing very lightly this morning with the overnight low being 7.5 above zero for a change. NWS is predicting 30% chance of snow for the day and evening, so I may see more this afternoon but right now it isn’t even enough to cover the bare spots on the deck.

            I researched home made wind generators online and found a design that I think will work better for my location. My wind is never consistent in direction so the wind generator has to constantly move to catch the wind, and thereby doesn’t achieve the 7 to 21 mph speed it needs to produce electricity. The design I researched is a bucket type, which will catch all of the moving air no matter which direction it is coming from. Now I just need to decide how large to make it and get the parts necessary.

            I spent part of the afternoon playing with Zack while I split and stacked more firewood. I managed to replenish my woodpile, which should last me at least another two weeks.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

            It is in the teens this morning with some errant snow flakes every now and then. The low was 1.5 at 8:12 this morning and climbing.

            I am preparing to make a trip to town today, and will leave soon, trying to break that problem of not getting home until after dark. It is just now 10 AM, so I’ll finish my coffee, change clothes and go.

            Finally, we actually made the trip to town, ran all the errands, had a treatment at the chiropractor, and got home before dark. The trip to Marysville in the Argo was uneventful, but before departing Guy and Mary’s for the return trip, Guy pointed out that my front right tire was actually coming off the rim. A closer inspection showed that this is the only one with a tube inside and the valve stem had been completely ripped off of the tube, so forget putting air in it.

            We aired up the rear left tire, but it is leaking so badly at the valve stem that it won’t hold air for long. I couldn’t find any tubes in town, so had Les Schwab order some that fit my tires. They should be in next week, so I’ll have to dismount the bad wheels and replace them with good wheels from the second or third position. The snow tracks should remain stretched between the other tires, and as long as the front and rear tires on both sides remain in good condition, travel should be possible.

            I played with Zack just as it was getting dark and then fed him and the cats, sat down with my V-8 and read my mail, which was all junk and bills. A warm fire, shower and dinner rounded out the evening.

            Shortly after dark, it began to snow seriously and hasn’t stopped when we retired at 12:30, so I’ll have new snow covering everything in the morning.

Thursday, December 31, 2009 - Now I have to get use to typing 2010

            By the time I got up, the snow had stopped, after dropping about 10”. The wind is mild but gusting to 10 mph, so it is blowing the snow from the heavily laden tree branches, causing a mini storm of its own.

            I kept forgetting that today is New Years Eve and the television programming is out the window. The bad thing about being in the Central or Mountain Time Zone is that unless you get local channels, which I don’t, you have to watch the New York feed and see New Years rang in two hours early, or watch the West Coast feed and stay up until 1:00 AM to see the festivities. I did neither and watched a marathon of the Three Stooges and then a movie, going to bed at 12:30 AM.

            This is the last entry for the year, so I’ll be starting my journal for 2010 tomorrow and posts this past weeks to my blog tonight.