INFORMATION FOR NEW READERS OF THIS BLOG

INFORMATION FOR NEW READERS OF THIS BLOG

Because others are now reading my online blog, I thought it would be appropriate to give the new readers some background.

A lot of information can be read on my page at My Space, which is www.myspace.com/montanaalbert

After retiring from a career in teaching, and working as a Detective in Sexual & Elder Abuse for the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department, I traveled full time in my RV.

While traveling, I always looked for possible places that I would enjoy settling down to spend my later years.

I found my spot during the spring of 2005, while traveling through Montana. It is an 1863-patented mining claim in the middle of the Helena National Forest. It is more isolated than most people would appreciate, but it is perfect for me. I am surrounded by almost a million acres of forest, with my closest neighbors being about five miles away, in the ghost town of Marysville.

I have always been one of those people that prefer to be alone and I am happy keeping myself occupied. Living alone always gives me the last word, and I win all of my arguments. I do have companions that keep me from feeling alone and fill my daily life with joy. Zoey, my calico cat was the first friend to keep me company, and then came Zack, a German Short Hair Pointer. He is one smart dog and we spend all our time together. Both of my friends travel well and go on trips with me in the motor home.

Zack travels with me all of the time, whether it is just a trip to the Continental Divide for a cell phone signal, or a trip to town, meaning Helena, or some other place. He likes to travel and see new places, being perfectly happy to stay in the car when he can’t accompany me.

My property had a modern seasonal log sided cabin built in 2002, and I have adapted it for full-time living. Every morning when I get up, I say to myself, “Another day in paradise,” because it is. The wild life that visits me on a regular basis includes deer, mule and white tail, elk, moose, an occasional black bear, and I have seen a wolf and the signs and sounds of a mountain lion. None of the more dangerous animals bother me and Zack always warns me when one is on the property.

The deer and moose frequent the mineral salt licks I have in my yard, and even play with Zoey once and a while. I have several families of Least chipmunks that entertain me, playing in the firewood pile just outside my window. I hide peanuts and sunflower seeds for them to find.

Most retired people want to move away from cold winters and the snow, but I sought out this environment. If one prepares themselves for cold snowy winters, it isn’t difficult, and I love to watch the snow fall and feel the changing of the seasons. I use an Argo for my winter transportation to and from town. It is an 8-wheel drive amphibious vehicle with snow tracks.

My place is so peaceful that the only man-made sounds you hear are those you make yourself, with an occasional airplane flying high overhead. Sitting on my deck, the songbirds and the breeze rushing through the trees is all you hear. Because of my altitude, I don’t have frogs or crickets, and no snakes or other reptiles. Another nice thing is that I don’t have fleas or pesky weeds like foxtails or burrs, to remove from Zoey or Zack.

I do worry a little bit about Zoey when she goes out hunting, as I do have Red Tail Hawks, Golden and Bald Eagles looking for a meal, but she is a wily cat and dashes from place to place, never staying in the open areas for very long.

My property is a Placer mining claim, and a creek runs through it that is fed year around by a spring. There are trout in the creek, but they aren’t very large, so I don’t fish for them. There is also gold in the creek, but the amount of work verses the amount of gold dust doesn’t make it profitable for me at this time.

Many of my friends ask me what I do with all my time during the long winter nights, but the days and nights aren’t long enough for me to do all of the things I enjoy. I write, mostly my daily log, but also books. I do artwork, mostly pencil, pen & ink, and water color work. I read or listen to books on tape, while sitting by a cozy fire watching the snowflakes slowly drift to the earth. I have satellite television and Internet, so surfing the net or becoming absorbed in a television program or movie is always available to me.


Living off the grid, meaning I produce my own electricity and pump my own water, can be challenging, but also very rewarding. If I have a power outage, I don’t wait for the power company to fix it, I do it myself. I also have no utility bills to deal with. Living my lifestyle may seem stressful to some, but challenging myself to overcome problems tells me I am alive and not just living.

And now that you have some background information on me, let me say that I love my lifestyle and many of my friends are jealous of me. I hope that those of you that love your lifestyle can enjoy it as much as I do mine.

Now, I invite you to keep up with my daily log and allow yourself to live vicariously through me.

Mountain Man

Sunday, June 28, 2009 -
The weather is a bit calmer this morning but before I could enjoy having the sliding doors open, the wind built to around 7 mph, gusting to 10, so I closed all but one door so Zack and Zoey could come and go without me having to get up and let them in and out. Zack likes to go out and lay on the front porch, soaking up the sunshine, and then comes in and goes to my bed for a short nap. He repeats this several times, so having the door open keeps me from jumping up all the time.
For those that may be new to reading my blog, I have one of the screens on my sliding door that allows you to pass through without having to open and close it. The flap has magnets that allow it to close and stay shut until someone passes through it. It makes it nice for the animals, but I do worry about them bringing in a mouse or gopher, or the chipmunks that seem to find their way through the crack and come visit me.
I have spent the early afternoon doing research, paying bills, and picking up the cabin in preparation for a good cleaning. My friends, Joe and Michele are going to come up for 4th of July weekend and spend it with me. They are bringing all the food for a nice steak BBQ, along with snacks and chip & dip for our usual board game time. We usually play Yahtzee and Monopoly, and some times other games that I keep for when I have company. So, I’ll be doing some cleaning to bring the cabin up to my standard for guests, as well as mowing the front forty and working on the road.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon researching cameras and cleaning the cabin. I managed to pick up the sunroom and kitchen, and then scrub the kitchen clean. It is now 9 O’clock and I have gone too long without food, so dinner is my focus at the moment. After dinner, I shall shower and then relax in front of the television until bedtime.

Monday, June 29, 2009 -
Although my barometer is indicating rain with a falling pressure, it is 76.8 degrees in the sunshine. There are only a few small wispy clouds in the sky and the sun is shining brightly. Last night, or I should say this mornings, low temperature was 31.6 at 5 AM, and the high yesterday was 84.3 at 4:44 PM. The wind reached a maximum of 25 mph at around 3 PM, and didn’t quit blowing all day long. The air is still, as of 10 this morning, but if a storm is moving in it will get windy again.
I am still having trouble finding the correct settings for the inverter to correctly charge the new batteries. The AGM type batteries require different voltage and amperage inputs so they don’t charge too fast and become over heated. Even though I have been lowering those settings, the generator bogs down and the inverter registers that the speed is too low, so kicks it out of the equation. The float level on these batteries should be 26.8 volts, but I can’t charge them beyond 24.6, which means that they are undercharged and only last a couple of days before having to recharge them again.
I have done research and found the charging information for these batteries at the manufactures web site, so I will study them and see if there is something more I can do to achieve the proper settings.
I changed into my grubby work clothes and went out to mow the front 40. It took about an hour and half to mow all of it, which includes stopping to move objects that were in the way, and fill the gas tank twice. Surprising to me that what little energy all of that took, it tired me out. I played with Zack and then quit for the day. A shower helped rejuvenate me, and I played one last time with Zack before feeding him.
I crashed in my recliner with a drink and read the information about the batteries and inverter one more time. It was 10 PM before I fixed and ate my dinner, but it doesn’t get dark until almost 10 PM, so it is hard to keep track of time. I watched a movie on television and went to bed at midnight.

Friday, June 26, 2009 -
It is another clear, sunny, warm morning, with a light breeze. It was too cool to open up yet, but not cool enough that I feel like I need a fire.
I am not sure if it was the stress of dealing with Hughes to ensure my internet connection, or something else, but after having gone to bed earlier than I normal do, I slept until 10:20 this morning. At least I am well rested, but still had to focus to make my coffee and feed my chipmunk and wild bird friends.
I went online to retrieve my emails, as I was expecting an email from my friend Joe, as I had invited him to come spend the weekend at the cabin while Michele is in Washington for a couple of days. This was the first time I had signed on since the upgrade and needed to re-register my modem before I could get online. It took way too much time to re-register and it knocked me off twice before I could finish. At the end of the process, it asked me for a PIN and I used what I use to sign into the Hughes Net, but it wouldn’t accept it, so I had to drive to the Divide and call support to find out that my PIN was just my ending phone number. Now how was I supposed to know that? I finally got all of it done and was able to collect my mail and read some things on the internet, when all of a sudden; my modem went to “NOT REGISTERED.”
I had to go through the entire process of re-registering again, with the exception of having to drive to the Divide and call Hughes. It worked and I was able to get back online and finish going through all 47 emails and respond to the ones that needed it. By the time I finished, it was late afternoon, and although I had planned on mowing the front 40, I decided to wait until tomorrow, or the next day, as I just don’t have the drive to go out and work.
Doing research, without being slowed down by Hughes, and playing with Zack, I managed to get almost all of the things I wanted to do, done. It is now 8 O’clock, I have played and fed Zack, and Zoey, finished and posted yesterday’s update, and now finished this update for sending. I will have a nice shower and then broil a Cornish game hen for dinner, before putting my computer to sleep and relaxing for the remainder of the evening.

Thursday, June 25, 2009 -
Checking the high temperature for yesterday was a surprise, it registered 84.4 degrees, but of course with the breeze it didn’t feel anywhere near that warm. The low temperature of 28 degrees was for Tuesday morning, as I hadn’t cleared the weather station.
Today looks like another beautiful day in paradise, but the barometer is indicating a drop in the pressure, which indicates the possibility of a storm, and NWS is predicting one for today, so we shall see.
Hughes Net has done it again as they slowed me down early yesterday evening, saying I had gone over my limit. I will be making a quick trip into town today, so I’ll call them and see what excuses they offer me.
Zack and I made our trip to town, and the Jeep’s remote outside temperature probe was registering 90 degrees outside. It was confirmed by two bank temperature readings, so it was hot enough to turn on the air conditioner, especial for Zack, as he was now panting heavily. We ran our errands, filled the Jeep and four gas cans with gasoline and then headed back home. The Blue Angels were practicing overhead for this weekends air show, and they were even using their smoke trails, which was impressive against the dark thunderclouds to the south.
We got up to the Divide and I drove by to see if a range rider was on site, so I could introduce myself, but the camp was empty. I haven’t seen any cattle yet, but all the gates have been closed and Guy told me he had seen several trucks moving cattle up the mountain. I guess they are dropping off the herd that usually grazes the area near the ski mountain, which never make it to my area.
Before heading down the gulch from the Divide, I found a good strong cell phone signal and called Hughes. After jumping through all of their hoops, I discovered that the upgrade wasn’t made, but no one seemed to know why. I had to talk to tech services to have the FAP restriction removed and then talk to billing, as they can’t communicate with each other, to have the upgrade made. They requested that I not go online for a couple of hours, which would give tech services a chance to remove the restriction and then they could do whatever is necessary to make the upgrade. When it all works well, the world is in balance, when it doesn’t, things can spin out of control. I then headed for the cabin.
I need to remember to recheck my information and see which ranges are going to be left empty this summer, just so I’ll know. I believe American Gulch isn’t rested until next summer, so I expect cows in my area by August. I purchased the treated lumber to make my cattle guard, and stopped to measure the one at the border of the BLM and National Forest Service. I will make two up and install them in the road, one at both sides of the property lines, to keep the cattle from following the road onto my property. Cattle, like water and electricity, will take the path of least resistant to their destination, so they use the road.
If I have enough time, I will make and put up Jackleg fence to protect the property and keep the cattle out. If time is tight, I could always temporarily string some of the barbed wire to prevent them from getting to the cabin, but I’d prefer not to create double work of putting it up and then removing it later.
Zack and I played and then I fed him and Zoey, showered, cleaned my incision, which is a little infected, so I used hydrogen peroxide to clean it, and then re-bandaged it. Dinner was a nice thick steak with a green salad, some Texas toast, and a few prawns. Some relaxation and television for the evening and I went to bed at 11 O’clock.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 -
It is a bright sunny morning and the air is still. After taking care of my morning routine, I stepped into the sun room, set my coffee down and prepare to put out the treats for my chipmunk friends. I glance at the outside temperature, having already concluded that I don’t need a fire, and am surprised that with the weather station now in the sun, it is reading 74 degrees. I am delighted and hope to get some outside work done today.
I slept well enough; only waking when I would accidentally hit my wrapped wound, which only happened a couple of times during the night. The gauze wrap has loosened and is now in the crook of my arm, leaving the wound unprotected. I need to remember to tape one end to my arm so that won’t happen. I analyze the open wound and from experience, I know that it is too late to re-stitch it, so the course of action is to keep it clean and covered until it scabs over.
The doctor and I discussed, in some detail, what I could do to deal with a wound like this if I can’t get care. Because it is a fairly large opening, super glue shouldn’t be used as it might trap harmful bacteria inside and cause it to get infected. Using a butterfly Band-Aid and keeping it clean and covered was her preference. I said, “What? I can’t just use some thread and sew it up.” She looked at me as if I was . . . well, you know. I told her of other bad cuts I’ve had and just butterfly and nursed back to health, and she agreed that it would be the best thing to do. The only reason stitches are preferred is to keep the wound closed and not cause a large scar. At this point in my life, I don’t think one more scar on my arm is any big deal, so I’ll just nurse it along.
It doesn’t hurt at all, but I flinch every time I forget about it and quickly reach for something. I can feel the skin being pulled and separating a little more. The Band-Aid I used for the butterfly has a material base and stretches more than I like, but it is the best I have. It dawned on me that the doctor erred in her approach to making the incision the way she did. She cut across the grain of my arm, instead of with the grain. Think about it, if she had made the almond shape cut so that the ends were up and down my arm, instead of side to side, less stress would have been applied to the area, thereby allowing it to heal without stress. I am almost positive that it wouldn’t have pulled open if the incision had been a180 degrees from the way it is. It just makes sense to me, but then who am I, it is just my body she was cutting on.
I started to do some work outside, but was reminded of the injury every time I needed to reach or pick something up, so I stopped and spent most of the afternoon doing research on the computer and writing. I haven’t even cleaned the cabin or put things from the motor home away yet, but there is always tomorrow and I am pretty sure it will all be there when I get around to it. I managed to play with Zack, using the same throwing techniques I used when I had my elbow problems. I use a twist of my body and wrist action to send the disc flying almost as far as doing it the regular way. It doesn’t make me extend my arm and stretch the injured area.
Well, it is 5 O’clock and Hughes hasn’t slowed me down yet, so maybe the email that I was able to finally send yesterday got through to them and they’ve done something about it. I am going to play with Zack again and then feed him, hoping he will be content with three play periods today and let me rest in peace. I will then shower, fix my dinner, and relax in my easy chair for the remainder of my awake hours.

The pictures are of 1) the wildflowers on the Divide that caused me to pull my wound open, 2) My American Gulch as I was driving home yesterday 3 ) Evening Grosbeaks at feeder.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 -
Although it is a bit breezy this morning, the sky is completely clear for the first time in a week or more, the sun is brightly warming the ground, Zack went out to lay on the front porch to try and soak up that warmth.
NWS is predicting partly cloudy and then more thunderstorms moving in by Thursday and continuing through Friday morning. I was hoping for a couple of days of sun so the yard would be dry enough to mow. It is getting long in the tooth and needs a good cutting. Maybe the wind and sun together will dry it out enough that I can cut it tomorrow.
With all the dead trees in the forest now, we can use the rain and moisture to help keep the fire danger down. When it heats up later this summer, I expect we will see some large forest fires over the entire area of bark beetle kill.
As soon as I finish my coffee and have a light breakfast, and then Zack and I will head into town to my doctor appointments, and run a few errands.
By 6 PM, we arrived home and unloaded the items from town. The trip to town went according to plans, as I collected my mail, made my chiropractor appointment, went to Safeway for some grocery items, stopped at Murrdoch’s for more bird seed and couple of additional salt licks, and then stopped at my doctor’s office for a blood draw and to have the stitches removed.
We headed for home, but made one last stop to pull a prank on my friend Michele. She had been boasting about how her strawberry plants already had tons of little berries and she couldn’t wait for them to mature. I bought some strawberries at Safeway and planned to put them in her plant bed to make it appear they had magically grown to maturity over night.
Her daughter, Heather, was home, so I conspirer with her to do the deed. She told me that Michele wouldn’t be home until tomorrow night, so she’d put them in the refrigerator and position them tomorrow night before her mom got home. She said she had thought of doing the same thing with the tomato plants, and I told her she should.
We left and headed to Marysville. There is no more road control, at least until they need to chip and seal the pavement the second week in July. I decided to take the long way up to the Divide, as I was pretty sure the wild flowers would be impressive, and I was right. I reached into the backseat to retrieve my camera, and my incision opened up like a defective Ziploc sandwich bag. It didn’t hurt, and still doesn’t, but it feels weird and poured plasma, or what ever that non-blood fluid is, down my arm.
I drove home, cut a butterfly bandage, applied it to the opening, and wrapped it tightly with gauze. I still had to unload the car and then Zack expected my to throw him the disc, injury or not. I made the best of it and managed to throw the disc several times without pulling on my incision. When he was satisfied enough to stop, I fed him and he went to take a nap.
I have been watching the deer at the salt licks and keeping Zack from going outside to investigate them. Zoey is now outside watching the deer. They are cautious and keep their distance, but return to the lick to enjoy the salt and minerals.
It is now after 8 O’clock and I need to shower, keeping my incision dry, and then have some dinner before relaxing in front of the television.