Saturday, July 11, 2009
It is clear and sunny this morning, with temperatures in the mid 60s and no wind. Today is the annual Marysville Picnic and we will drive down and see what there is to see.
After my morning coffee and other activities, Zack and I hopped in the Jeep and headed for Marysville just a little past noon. Marysville has been having an annual picnic for a number of years, and I always make an appearance just to see who’s there and what venders and entertainment they have.
As we approached the meadow area, about a mile from the cabin, we happened across a cow moose with her baby, which couldn’t have been more than a few days old. We stared at each other as Zack made a fuss about not being able to get out and investigate. I reached for my camera, only to discover that I had forgotten it on the kitchen island. Another missed opportunity at a nature photo.
This is the second year that they posted “No Dogs” at the Marysville Picnic, as they had a problem with so many local and strange dogs being turned lose to chase and play, along with stealing hot dogs and hamburgers from small children. I found a parking space in the shade and Zack napped while I visited and had a cheeseburger for lunch. The money they make from the concession stand and auction (one pie sold for $165.00) goes to help restore and maintain some of the public buildings and the museum.
After visiting with several acquaintances, I decided that there wasn’t much else there for me, plus I didn’t want to leave Zack in the car as it was hot, even in the shade. I missed seeing Dan, the fire chief, and his family, who just returned from a trip to Flagstaff and Grand Canyon. He had emailed me while I was in that area, asking how far they would have to travel south for his son, Levi to see a saguaros cactus, as he had learned about them in school and really wanted to see one. I had given him directions to Black Canyon City, which is the furthest north they seem to grow, and he emailed me today to let me know their trip was a great success and they even found a park in Black Canyon City with a trail that takes you in and around the cactus.
Mary wasn’t to be found either, but I know that she is busy taking care of her grandchildren while Guy drives Jill to Chicago. I was going to stop by their home on my way back to the cabin, but decided not to as I had things at the cabin that I needed to attend to.
We got back home by 3:30, and I changed into work clothes and went out to spray more noxious weeds, which took the rest of the day. For those that don’t know, I am contracted by the BLM to spray along the road all of the way to the Divide, and all the equipment and materials are furnished by them. I am paid $45.00 a week, but haven’t seen a cent of it from last season yet. Such is our government. I finally quit at 6 PM, showered to get any overspray off myself, fed Zack and then sat down to cool off and relax before having some dinner and watching television until bedtime.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
The day’s weather started out just like yesterday, except the winds were mild and there are fewer clouds. It looks like I may have enough rainless warm days to actually do my roadwork. Of course, that being said, I’ll probably be complaining about how hot and dry it is within a week or two.
I worked on the computer most of the morning and into the early afternoon, and then forced myself to stop and do some of the things outside that needed to be done. Unfortunately, I chose to do one of the items on my list of “want to do” instead of those “need to do,” and ended up spending almost three hours climbing a mountain. I have always wondered what might be up Greenhorn Mountain and today I discovered what. Nothing.
This was NOT Fred asking if we want to take a little walk, which is an inside joke for; let’s hike until we can’t stand up. Zack and I headed straight up the mountain and about 50 minutes later, found the apex and stacked some rocks to show we’d been there. Now, some of you may be asking why we did this, and I would have to say, “Because it was there.” In all the time I have lived here, I have never gone up that side of the property, and I wanted to see exactly what was up there. I had hoped to see signs of a spring, or any human activity, or just find the game trails, but none of those things existed.
It would have been great to find a long lost and forgotten old rifle leaning against a tree, or the shed antlers of an elk or deer, or signs of a long forgotten cabin, but we found nothing, not even a well worn game trail, which surprised me. I wish I had taken my GPS with me, so I would know how far we traveled and the difference in altitude.
From the apex, the mountain drops down a short distance to a ravine and then rises again to another mountaintop that isn’t as tall. Because of the forest, I couldn’t tell for sure what was beyond that, but I do know that somewhere in that direction is the ridge road I’ve taken before in my Argo.
We headed back down, taking a different route, as I hoped to come out in the creek bed that I believe my resident moose frequent. It is much steeper on that side and we descended quickly, finding patches of Bear Grass and thickets of willow brush, but still no game trails. I guess the animals are smart enough to follow the creek beds and not have to climb away from their food supply. The forest on the mountain is thick, so not much grows in their shade, and almost no grasses or berries were present on the northwest side. I did find a few trees that had been cut by a hand saw, but no signs of any cabins or other man-made structures.
Once back at the cabin, Zack and I both needed to rest and drink more water. After that, I went out, cut the heads of the thistles off, and sprayed the remainder to kill the roots. This took me until almost 7 PM, so I fixed Zack’s dinner and cooled down before taking my shower and having dinner. Zack and I both over did it and were limping around, me with sore feet and him with what I think is a sprained front leg. We both rested the remainder of the evening and then went to bed.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
It looks like another beautiful morning in paradise, with the sun shining brightly and only a few clouds on the horizon. The temperature is a bit cool, in the mid to high 50s, with hope of it becoming warmer as the day wears on.
The winds are still blowing and keeping the wind-chill factor active, but local weather reports are saying that summer is back with temperatures in the low to mid 80s this coming weekend.
Today is a town day, so after my morning coffee and a short amount of time to check and respond to my emails, I will get ready and leave so I can meet my friend Greg for lunch in town.
We made it to town and I had lunch with Greg and a nice visit, and then ran a couple of errands and picked up my mail. My appointment is with an allergist and is at 3 O’clock, but they phoned and asked if I could come in earlier as they finished early with a patient. Because this is my first visit, he wanted more time to gather my history and discuss possible solutions to my Rhinorrhea, which is a constant running nose, or to put it bluntly, diarrhea of the nose.
I drove to the office and checked in, and was then led to a room and waited for the doctor. He arrived and introduced himself, Dr. Richard Buswell, and began asking me questions, referring to the letter of referral from my doctor. As we talked, the discussion of where I live came up and come to find out he is a well known professional photographer of old cabins and historical spots. We spent more time talking socially than about my allergies, but finished up with possible remedies for my Rhinorrhea, as well as asthma.
He prescribed a couple of different medications for my Rhinorrhea and one for my asthma, giving me several samples of them to try. Because of my high blood pressure, he doesn’t want me to use anything with a decongestant and due to my past problem with WPW (Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome); he doesn’t want me to use inhalers with stimulants in them.
Before leaving, he shared the three books of his photographs currently in publication, and told me that another was being compiled for publication. He shared that his home has a complete dark room and processing lab and that he does all of his own developing. He shoots 35 mm black and white and coats the film with gold, on top of the silver, to make them long lasting. He also has a climate-controlled room to keep all of the original negatives and invited me to come see it some time.
He said that he has been torn between being a doctor and professional photographer all of his adult life. He has specialized as an allergist for over 30 years and done photography for more than that.
I am very impressed with his photographs and we exchanged contact information so he can come up and see some of the places I have found that he may not be aware of, such as the mine and miner’s cabin hidden in the gulch near me. He grew up in this area (my location) and his father recently sold their old homestead, which isn’t far from me. I have digital photographs of many of the pictures in his book and offered to let him go through and see if there are any he was unaware of. He told me that I was now officially one of his information contacts for places to go check out. I invited him to come up and we could use the Argo to get some of the sites that you can’t drive to. He assured me he would.
Other than stopping at Safeway for some items and to pick up a prescription, we headed for home. Once the Jeep was unloaded, I played with Zack until he gave up. I fed him and Zoey, showered, fixed myself some dinner and then relaxed for the remainder of the evening.
This morning’s low was 30.1 and the high for the day was 74 degrees, with wind gusts to 24 mph. No rain for a change, and if things dry out, I may be able to get some work outside done.
It looks like another beautiful morning in paradise, with the sun shining brightly and only a few clouds on the horizon. The temperature is a bit cool, in the mid to high 50s, with hope of it becoming warmer as the day wears on.
The winds are still blowing and keeping the wind-chill factor active, but local weather reports are saying that summer is back with temperatures in the low to mid 80s this coming weekend.
Today is a town day, so after my morning coffee and a short amount of time to check and respond to my emails, I will get ready and leave so I can meet my friend Greg for lunch in town.
We made it to town and I had lunch with Greg and a nice visit, and then ran a couple of errands and picked up my mail. My appointment is with an allergist and is at 3 O’clock, but they phoned and asked if I could come in earlier as they finished early with a patient. Because this is my first visit, he wanted more time to gather my history and discuss possible solutions to my Rhinorrhea, which is a constant running nose, or to put it bluntly, diarrhea of the nose.
I drove to the office and checked in, and was then led to a room and waited for the doctor. He arrived and introduced himself, Dr. Richard Buswell, and began asking me questions, referring to the letter of referral from my doctor. As we talked, the discussion of where I live came up and come to find out he is a well known professional photographer of old cabins and historical spots. We spent more time talking socially than about my allergies, but finished up with possible remedies for my Rhinorrhea, as well as asthma.
He prescribed a couple of different medications for my Rhinorrhea and one for my asthma, giving me several samples of them to try. Because of my high blood pressure, he doesn’t want me to use anything with a decongestant and due to my past problem with WPW (Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome); he doesn’t want me to use inhalers with stimulants in them.
Before leaving, he shared the three books of his photographs currently in publication, and told me that another was being compiled for publication. He shared that his home has a complete dark room and processing lab and that he does all of his own developing. He shoots 35 mm black and white and coats the film with gold, on top of the silver, to make them long lasting. He also has a climate-controlled room to keep all of the original negatives and invited me to come see it some time.
He said that he has been torn between being a doctor and professional photographer all of his adult life. He has specialized as an allergist for over 30 years and done photography for more than that.
I am very impressed with his photographs and we exchanged contact information so he can come up and see some of the places I have found that he may not be aware of, such as the mine and miner’s cabin hidden in the gulch near me. He grew up in this area (my location) and his father recently sold their old homestead, which isn’t far from me. I have digital photographs of many of the pictures in his book and offered to let him go through and see if there are any he was unaware of. He told me that I was now officially one of his information contacts for places to go check out. I invited him to come up and we could use the Argo to get some of the sites that you can’t drive to. He assured me he would.
Other than stopping at Safeway for some items and to pick up a prescription, we headed for home. Once the Jeep was unloaded, I played with Zack until he gave up. I fed him and Zoey, showered, fixed myself some dinner and then relaxed for the remainder of the evening.
This morning’s low was 30.1 and the high for the day was 74 degrees, with wind gusts to 24 mph. No rain for a change, and if things dry out, I may be able to get some work outside done.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 -
It is sunny but cool this morning, with a low this morning of 34.8 at 3:28 AM. The temperature is dropping as some storm clouds close in over the sun. When I got up this morning, the sky over my little valley was completely clear and deep blue, but within 30 minutes, the storm clouds that had surrounded me, closed in and it began to lightly rain.
In the years I’ve lived here, I haven’t experienced a spring and beginning of summer with so much moisture. I hear that this is more the norm than in the past, when they had a drought for several years. This past winter, while I was away playing in the sunny south, we had more snow that in the past 7 years.
I am personally glad for the daily showers as there are so many beetle killed dead trees in the forest, it will help keep the danger of fires low. I am glad that my cabin sits in such a large open area and my creek can furnish water to my fire pump if there were a fire. I believe that I could easily defend the cabin, but for safety sake, I’d grab Zack and Zoey, the valuables and head out of the area. If time permitted, the Forest Service and my volunteer department from Marysville could get here to assist in knocking a fire down.
Have you ever given any thought to what you would do if a fire broke out in the middle of the night? I have made a list of things, besides the obvious living things, and keep them in a location where I can easily grab them. They are just material objects, but if time permitted, and it didn’t pose a danger, I would try to save them. Pictures are always one of the first things people try to save, and with the advent of digital pictures, grabbing my computer and back up drive would save the largest majority. Other than my strong box, with some important documents, I could leave my safe and the contents would survive with a fire rating of two hours at 2100 degrees.
I don’t own much in the way of irreplaceable things, so wouldn’t miss those things I couldn’t save. I think everyone should have an emergency plan that covers all possible catastrophes. I carry an emergency box in each of my vehicles that would help me survive for several days (this site calls it a Bug Out Bag http://www.survivalistbooks.com/faq/bugbags.htm). I have a written emergency plan for fire, flood (unlikely here, but who knows), earthquake, and invasion. I don’t feel the need for a plan if Yellowstone, the largest volcano ever, were to blow, as I am close enough that I’d probably be a goner. I don’t worry about a landslide, tsunami, tornado, or hurricane, but some of you might.
The Boy Scout motto of always being prepared is a good one, and we should think about the possibilities of something happening, but not dwell on them. I remember reading a story about a father that lost his life, because he returned to his burning home to find his children. They had safely escaped out the back and because the family didn’t have a planned meeting place, he needlessly lost his life.
Whoa, how did I get off on all of that? Let’s move on to something else, shall we? I love how green everything is right now, and as the storms abate, the meadows and hillsides will turn a golden brown. Friends often ask me, “Why on earth did you move to Montana, where it snows and is below zero in the winter time?” My answer is, “because I love the changes in the seasons, and if you prepare for the weather, it isn’t a problem.” This past winter, while I was in Arizona and southern California, my mind was fooled into thinking it was summer. The temperature was consistently in the mid 70s to 90s, while back home there was little doubt it was winter with 30 below and 10’ of snow.
Everyone has their “ideal” location and weather, mine just happens to be here where I can feel each season to its fullest. Many people are born, raised, work and die, all in the same location, and there isn’t anything wrong with that, but I am not one of them. I love to travel and have experienced so many wonderful places that I wanted to choose my place to retire.
I may not live the rest of my life right here, but for now it is my little piece of heaven on earth, and I’ll stay. As I got older, my idea of the perfect place to live changed. I had long thought that living on an island in the tropics would be the ideal place, but after a trip to Costa Rica a few years ago, I changed my mind. It was a beautiful place but humidity and bugs got to me quickly. I guess the ideal thing would to be able to experience all of the possible places before choosing one. I did that to an extent, by traveling to experience places with different climates and conditions. Another factor was financial and political. Having been a fifth generation Californian, I loved it and all the differing climates, but the tax system and politics weren’t for me.
I guess the most important thing is to be happy. Not selfish happy, but just happy with your life and surroundings. I have met so many people that are unhappy with their jobs, marriage, location, etc., that it is sad. I think that there are actually people in this world that are happy to be unhappy. If they didn’t have things to complain about, they wouldn’t be happy.
Hold it. I just had war break out next to me. The four chipmunks that are at the seed dish outside my window are starting a war over who gets all of it. Some times they look like they are really hurting each other, while other times it appears to be more of a game. There seems to be a fine line between the two and I guess the young ones learn about defending their family, food and territory by playing at fighting.
Since the sun disappeared, the temperature has dropped 7 degrees and it became uncomfortable enough that I have built a small fire to take the chill off. I am sure it seems odd that it is cool enough to have a fire in July, but it is here. Even though the rain is discouraging me from working outside, I am enjoying it. It becomes my excuse to stay indoors and work on less physical things.
As it approaches noon, I have enjoyed watching the massive thunder clouds moving through the sky, the wind blowing the willow bushes in the creek bed, a light rain, the chipmunk and bird’s antics at the feeders, the dancing flames of my fire, and the beautiful green mountains around me. Give me this over a city or even small town any day. No human made noise, other than those I make myself, and the still peacefulness of being in the wilderness.
As the afternoon moved on, I did research on emergency preparedness and found several interesting sites. One such site has several pages of information that I thought some of you may be interested in. It is http://www.captaindaves.com/guide/ and has links to other sites on like subjects.
I finally quit at 8 O’clock, showered, ate dinner and watched a bit of television before going to bed. The days rain equaled a quarter of an inch on my rain gauge, which was emptied this morning.
It is sunny but cool this morning, with a low this morning of 34.8 at 3:28 AM. The temperature is dropping as some storm clouds close in over the sun. When I got up this morning, the sky over my little valley was completely clear and deep blue, but within 30 minutes, the storm clouds that had surrounded me, closed in and it began to lightly rain.
In the years I’ve lived here, I haven’t experienced a spring and beginning of summer with so much moisture. I hear that this is more the norm than in the past, when they had a drought for several years. This past winter, while I was away playing in the sunny south, we had more snow that in the past 7 years.
I am personally glad for the daily showers as there are so many beetle killed dead trees in the forest, it will help keep the danger of fires low. I am glad that my cabin sits in such a large open area and my creek can furnish water to my fire pump if there were a fire. I believe that I could easily defend the cabin, but for safety sake, I’d grab Zack and Zoey, the valuables and head out of the area. If time permitted, the Forest Service and my volunteer department from Marysville could get here to assist in knocking a fire down.
Have you ever given any thought to what you would do if a fire broke out in the middle of the night? I have made a list of things, besides the obvious living things, and keep them in a location where I can easily grab them. They are just material objects, but if time permitted, and it didn’t pose a danger, I would try to save them. Pictures are always one of the first things people try to save, and with the advent of digital pictures, grabbing my computer and back up drive would save the largest majority. Other than my strong box, with some important documents, I could leave my safe and the contents would survive with a fire rating of two hours at 2100 degrees.
I don’t own much in the way of irreplaceable things, so wouldn’t miss those things I couldn’t save. I think everyone should have an emergency plan that covers all possible catastrophes. I carry an emergency box in each of my vehicles that would help me survive for several days (this site calls it a Bug Out Bag http://www.survivalistbooks.com/faq/bugbags.htm). I have a written emergency plan for fire, flood (unlikely here, but who knows), earthquake, and invasion. I don’t feel the need for a plan if Yellowstone, the largest volcano ever, were to blow, as I am close enough that I’d probably be a goner. I don’t worry about a landslide, tsunami, tornado, or hurricane, but some of you might.
The Boy Scout motto of always being prepared is a good one, and we should think about the possibilities of something happening, but not dwell on them. I remember reading a story about a father that lost his life, because he returned to his burning home to find his children. They had safely escaped out the back and because the family didn’t have a planned meeting place, he needlessly lost his life.
Whoa, how did I get off on all of that? Let’s move on to something else, shall we? I love how green everything is right now, and as the storms abate, the meadows and hillsides will turn a golden brown. Friends often ask me, “Why on earth did you move to Montana, where it snows and is below zero in the winter time?” My answer is, “because I love the changes in the seasons, and if you prepare for the weather, it isn’t a problem.” This past winter, while I was in Arizona and southern California, my mind was fooled into thinking it was summer. The temperature was consistently in the mid 70s to 90s, while back home there was little doubt it was winter with 30 below and 10’ of snow.
Everyone has their “ideal” location and weather, mine just happens to be here where I can feel each season to its fullest. Many people are born, raised, work and die, all in the same location, and there isn’t anything wrong with that, but I am not one of them. I love to travel and have experienced so many wonderful places that I wanted to choose my place to retire.
I may not live the rest of my life right here, but for now it is my little piece of heaven on earth, and I’ll stay. As I got older, my idea of the perfect place to live changed. I had long thought that living on an island in the tropics would be the ideal place, but after a trip to Costa Rica a few years ago, I changed my mind. It was a beautiful place but humidity and bugs got to me quickly. I guess the ideal thing would to be able to experience all of the possible places before choosing one. I did that to an extent, by traveling to experience places with different climates and conditions. Another factor was financial and political. Having been a fifth generation Californian, I loved it and all the differing climates, but the tax system and politics weren’t for me.
I guess the most important thing is to be happy. Not selfish happy, but just happy with your life and surroundings. I have met so many people that are unhappy with their jobs, marriage, location, etc., that it is sad. I think that there are actually people in this world that are happy to be unhappy. If they didn’t have things to complain about, they wouldn’t be happy.
Hold it. I just had war break out next to me. The four chipmunks that are at the seed dish outside my window are starting a war over who gets all of it. Some times they look like they are really hurting each other, while other times it appears to be more of a game. There seems to be a fine line between the two and I guess the young ones learn about defending their family, food and territory by playing at fighting.
Since the sun disappeared, the temperature has dropped 7 degrees and it became uncomfortable enough that I have built a small fire to take the chill off. I am sure it seems odd that it is cool enough to have a fire in July, but it is here. Even though the rain is discouraging me from working outside, I am enjoying it. It becomes my excuse to stay indoors and work on less physical things.
As it approaches noon, I have enjoyed watching the massive thunder clouds moving through the sky, the wind blowing the willow bushes in the creek bed, a light rain, the chipmunk and bird’s antics at the feeders, the dancing flames of my fire, and the beautiful green mountains around me. Give me this over a city or even small town any day. No human made noise, other than those I make myself, and the still peacefulness of being in the wilderness.
As the afternoon moved on, I did research on emergency preparedness and found several interesting sites. One such site has several pages of information that I thought some of you may be interested in. It is http://www.captaindaves.com/guide/ and has links to other sites on like subjects.
I finally quit at 8 O’clock, showered, ate dinner and watched a bit of television before going to bed. The days rain equaled a quarter of an inch on my rain gauge, which was emptied this morning.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 -
National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting more thunderstorms possible, but my barometer is saying the pressure is rising and showing a sun for the prediction. I have to say that my weather station is frequently predicting the future, not the present, while the NWS is predicting . . . wait, I don’t know what they are predicting. Often they are wrong, at least for my location, while the other half are at least partially correct. All in all, they do a pretty good job, but if you read the Farmer’s Almanac, you will probably come to the same conclusion as NWS.
I can see some thunderheads to the northeast of me and they seem to be moving my way, but who knows? It’s hard to plan your days outside activities when you don’t know if it will storm or not.
I spent my morning as usual, coffee, computer, brunch, more computer and then on with the day. As I did my work, the clouds moved in and it got cold. By one O’clock it was raining, but not thunder and lightning like yesterday. A glance at my outside temperature is indicating it is 69 degrees outside at 2 PM, but it doesn’t feel like it.
Due to the weather . . . AGAIN . . . I will be working inside and try to finish several projects that I haven’t taken the time to work on. One is cutting and pasting a writer’s newsletter that I get each month, into a Word document, separating the different topics so it will be easy to refer to when I want to. That should take a bit of time as I have 6 months of newsletters to deal with, and 6 different topics to separate.
At the rate the weather is producing rain, I may not get the road repaired until August. I can’t work until it is dry or I’ll just be pushing mud around, with most of it sticking to the bulldozer.
It took about 45 minutes to cut and paste all of the Writer’s Newsletters, and with that done, I need to turn my attention to organizing and cleaning the cabin. I’ll play with Zack and then get busy.
Well, it is now 8 PM and I have managed to avoid all work. I found one thing after another to do on the computer, it has consumed my eyesight, which is now blurry, and I am unable to focus on anything close up. I have played with Zack two more times and fed him, so now I’ll put the computer down, fix myself some dinner and then relax for the rest of the night.
National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting more thunderstorms possible, but my barometer is saying the pressure is rising and showing a sun for the prediction. I have to say that my weather station is frequently predicting the future, not the present, while the NWS is predicting . . . wait, I don’t know what they are predicting. Often they are wrong, at least for my location, while the other half are at least partially correct. All in all, they do a pretty good job, but if you read the Farmer’s Almanac, you will probably come to the same conclusion as NWS.
I can see some thunderheads to the northeast of me and they seem to be moving my way, but who knows? It’s hard to plan your days outside activities when you don’t know if it will storm or not.
I spent my morning as usual, coffee, computer, brunch, more computer and then on with the day. As I did my work, the clouds moved in and it got cold. By one O’clock it was raining, but not thunder and lightning like yesterday. A glance at my outside temperature is indicating it is 69 degrees outside at 2 PM, but it doesn’t feel like it.
Due to the weather . . . AGAIN . . . I will be working inside and try to finish several projects that I haven’t taken the time to work on. One is cutting and pasting a writer’s newsletter that I get each month, into a Word document, separating the different topics so it will be easy to refer to when I want to. That should take a bit of time as I have 6 months of newsletters to deal with, and 6 different topics to separate.
At the rate the weather is producing rain, I may not get the road repaired until August. I can’t work until it is dry or I’ll just be pushing mud around, with most of it sticking to the bulldozer.
It took about 45 minutes to cut and paste all of the Writer’s Newsletters, and with that done, I need to turn my attention to organizing and cleaning the cabin. I’ll play with Zack and then get busy.
Well, it is now 8 PM and I have managed to avoid all work. I found one thing after another to do on the computer, it has consumed my eyesight, which is now blurry, and I am unable to focus on anything close up. I have played with Zack two more times and fed him, so now I’ll put the computer down, fix myself some dinner and then relax for the rest of the night.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009 -
It is overcast this morning, but it looks rather thin and I am not sure if it will produce much in the way of rain. I was feeling lazy this morning, so took my time having my coffee and doing my usual computer stuff.
I had mentally planned to work on the road today, leaving the cleaning until the afternoon or even tomorrow, but it didn’t work out. By the time I had washed and dried two loads of clothes, the day turned to night and the sky opened up. I had never seen it turn so dark and by 2:00 O’clock I had to turn on lights to see what I was doing. Because of the weather, Zack didn’t even ask to go out and play, and just stayed in bed.
The temperature dropped quickly and before I knew it, it was hailing so hard I couldn’t hear myself think. It came down so hard and fast that I thought it might break my weather station. The hail was the size of marbles and it was sliding off the upper roof and crashing onto the sunroom’s metal roof. The lightning and thunder had Zack back upstairs in my bed, as it seems to be the only place he feels safe.
One strike of lightning was so close that before I could even think about counting to see how close it was, the thunder ripped through the cabin shaking everything including my teeth. I didn’t see where it hit, but it was too close for comfort.
The turn of the weather obviously changed my plans and I spent the entire afternoon working on the computer, viewing You Tube videos and researching different things. By 4:30, the sun broke through the clouds and heated up the sunroom. I had built a small fire as the drop in temperature made it uncomfortable, but now it was too hot.
Zack and I went out to play and then the sun disappeared again, making the sunroom cool down quickly. I folded and put the clothes away, made my bed and played one more time with Zack before feeding him. It is 8:30 and I will now shower and fix myself some dinner before watching some television and going to bed.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009 -
It was clear and promising to be a nice day this morning, so we planned on doing some more target practice and just relaxing all day long.
Just before noon, I prepared deli sausage, hash browns, eggs, toast and OJ. We had a leisurely brunch and then laid around relaxing. By afternoon, we did some more target shooting and although the afternoon thundershowers appeared on schedule, we got out the rifles and gave Michele a chance to try her hand.
It turned out she was better than both of us with my pump .22 at 50 yards, hitting more consistently than either of us. We started shooting the metal swinging targets, which are about 70 yards out, and once again Michele proved to be the best at nailing the little targets that are not much bigger than silver dollars.
It rained a little bit most of the afternoon, but we were under the roof on the deck and it didn’t spoil our fun. We finally took a break and played 5 rounds of Yahtzee, with Michele winning 4 of them. It was a good weekend for her.
There were additional steaks from last night, so I barbequed them and cooked some artichokes that I had purchased Thursday. Artichokes are more of a California food, as many people here have no idea how to fix or eat them. I gave Joe and Michele a quick lesson and we had soon devoured them to the heart, dipping them in butter. It being a new food for them, I don’t think they were sure the effort was worth it, but I certainly enjoyed mine. Any time I have artichokes, I think of the Little Rascals episode where Stymie is given one and he carefully peels off each leaf and throws it away, not knowing what it is. When he gets to the heart, he throws it away and says, “It may have choked Artie, but it ain’t going to choke me.”
Soon after clearing the table, they needed to load their things into the car and head back to town. They have to been in Great Falls to open the store in the morning, so had to get back.
I watched some television and looked at the mess I need to clean up, knowing it will be there tomorrow. I need to clean the weapons, put them in their place, as well as vacuum and straighten things up. I went to bed around 11:15 for a good nights sleep.
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