Home on the Hill

And a few other parts too. We were up early today as I had to prepare for some remote support sessions. I dial in to my customers' computers and update their software. It felt a little cold this morning. Colder when I looked at the coldometer. -37 in Fraser Lake, but only a balmy -32 here. We loaded the furnace before bed last night and it was still going this morning at 6:30. Enough that we could just throw some logs in to warm the joint up. Sometime today I have to make the trek up to Grandma's to make sure the space heaters are on so the water doesn't freeze up. Seems to happen around -30 or so. Really a good day for some office work.

This is the quick and easy way to get wood for the furnace. With reports coming in of -35 next week I decided it was prudent to stock up the wood pile. Fortunately my brother Tom has a pile of logs that have been prepped for building log homes but have defects on them. Perfect for burning. Dry, no bark. He just holds them up with the skid steer and I can walk along the log cutting it at a convenient height. A mechanized saw horse. Loading a couple of cords of wood up into a pickup truck by hand is a lot of lifting. Scooping it up with the skid steer bucket and me lifting it down into the pickup is about 1000 % easier, and faster. ( Viki..do you recognize the truck?) When I get it back to our house it's just a matter of using a pickaroon to slide the wood out of the back of the truck and put it next to the basement door. Where it's handy to the wood splitter and sheltered storage. As easy as this was compared to doing it all by hand, never the less, at the end of the day...

a buddy of mine asked me to post a picture of "the Skid steer" so here it is. It is a Case skid steer, model 1845. It dates from about 1980. An old girl ( as skid steers go..) starting often requires prayer. She leaks hydraulic fluid, is noisy as all get out, the controls jump all over the place, -- but she makes the difference of being able to get around the place without snow shoes, and every time I get her running I pause for a moment of gratitude. She has a clamshell bucket that opens and closes and we replaced the cutting edge last summer. My brother, Tiny , has a brand new cat version and the old skid steer can do some things easier. Like "back blading", where I tilt the blade almost vertically and use it to scrape a surface smooth while I drive backward. In the winter time I keep her safely ensconced in the garage with a trickle charger and block heater plugged in. Clearing the whole yard takes a couple of hours. Three if I do the driveway so the ...

My brain was busy working on a database problem today so I sent it off to work on the problem while I did some projects. Sometimes my brain likes it that way - I think I just get in its way. I fired up the skid steer and cleared around the chicken run so that I could change the straw in the runs and coop. The chickens sure seem to like fresh straw to strut on. And left-over spaghetti. Any kind of carbs actually. Then I trudged down to the basement to re-locate the wood pile. One of those little things. When we moved here I built a temporary shop in the basement because the shop I wanted to use was full of the previous tenants stuff. That's a whole 'nother topic. Anyway because of that when I put an inside wood rack in I had to put it on the wrong side of the outside basement door. It was behind the door and when the door was open you couldn't get to the wood inside. So it made getting the wood quite a tedious operation. Go outside, get some wood, wrangle the door open, thro...

No animals were injured during the taking of these pictures: Cat: "ah yor DogFu style is no match for my CatPaw technique. Dog: Yow! watch the eyes! Dog: " Let's see how good your Cat paw technique is with only one paw. Both: " OK that was fun, but right now time for a nap... Xena (the wonder dog) and his Pal Ewe, spend a lot of time daily in these mock fights. No harm done to either. Just having fun playing. And napping. Sounds like a recipe for a happy life.

I have this dream of being able to provide all our vegetables, beef, pork, chicken and eggs that we would need. So far we have the eggs and beef taken care of. Come spring I want to try some porkers and meat chickens. I was explaining this dream to our friend Audrey when we were at her place. I was telling her about a movement - the 100 mile diet whose premise is to grow or buy locally - within a 100 miles of your home. I was saying that most staples can be purchased locally but the hard thing was to find wheat to make flour. She opened up a sack she had, poured some hard whole unground red winter wheat into a food processor and made us enough flour for four loaves of bread. Jo-Ann has been experimenting with whole wheat flours. What a bread this flour made! Sweet with local honey, nutty flavoured, nutritious , filling stuff. Now we are on a mission to locate a source of whole unground wheat. Preferably- red winter wheat. A local feed store sales 50 lb bags for $12.40. But I don't...

Again. Warmed up and then cooled down. We were in thick white Ice Crystal fog until mid afternoon when the sun managed to burn some of it away. I can usually count on the day being nice when I am stuck in the office. I am working on a new upgrade for our program and contending with a cat (Ewe) who insists on swatting at the mouse cursor as it moves around the screen. This is a picture of the bug killed pine at the side of our upper driveway. Looks pretty nice with the hoar frost on it. It's dead and I suppose I should cut it down for firewood but a Faller friend of mine pointed out that you don't really want to do that when it's this covered with frost. Something about getting buried in snow if you have to wedge the tree over. One of the Solar powered lanterns that sit on the ledge on our front balconey. Or is it a veranda.? I can never get those straight.

We had some quick changing weather yesterday that made for some neat effects. It went from 0C to -21 in less than 12 hours. This picture is the view across the South valley from our place. The light is just breaking through the hoarfros t at the valley bottom. Such a rapid change in temperature causes the water vapour to crystallize out of the air. It covers everything giving it a wonderful winter land effect. You can see the crystals in the air, like millions of diamonds. From a distance it will look like fog, which I guess, it is - an ice-fog. It was almost a shame to destroy this crystal garden by cleaning off the windsheild of the truck. It's really an interesting phenomenon. When Jo-Ann was taking these pictures she could actually see the ice crystals growing! It has warmed up to -10 today. I will spend the day cleaning out the garage so that I can park the skid-steer and ATV's in it so I don't have to cover the skid-steer with tarps to keep the snow off. Hope your hav...

Last night we had a clear -14 with a bright three quarters moon and a stunning Mars high above Orion so we decided to go for a walk around 10 pm. We had headlights and back up flashlights but didn't really need them until we got into the forest part of the trail. This is a picture Kevin took of Sara and I under the full moon. The moon is a lot bigger in person..

It was a beautiful boxing day today so we decided to go snow shoeing. What a lot of fun. We have a packed trail now so it will be easier to keep it open. We're thinking of trying to do a moon lit one tonight, that should be pretty spectacular. On the way back Sara and Kevin decided to do an ascent of Mt. James via the treacherous West face. Not only did they succeed but they set a new record, doing the ascent in One minute and 17 seconds. And then the pace picked up as we went back to the house for tea, turkey salad, cookies and pie. Perhaps an afternoon nap... It's the tryptophan .

Hope you and yours are enjoying Christmas and having a great time. My daughter Sara and husband Kevin made it up for Christmas and the adventure begins. 10 minutes after getting on the sled Kev's going over the "Gully" We wanted to use the sled to go and get the Christmas tree. Unfortunately, the snow was just too soft so we used snow shoes. Our friend James, gave us a hand. Sara got the ski-do bug and Christmas day she will give it a try on the road and over the fields and through the trees. We were up late last night decorating the tree after the do at the Endako Hall. Fun for all.

The chucks seem to be in their prime. They are laying ten eggs a day from 10 chucks so that's pretty neat. The thing is they have been laying some gi-normous eggs. Have a look at this double yolker one. No Yolk! Jo-Ann's theory is that the Ostriches down the road have been visiting. I guess it could happen. Poor Xena managed to get into the compost tires ( cuz some one knocked them over with a skidsteer while path clearing ) and was muching on some old "T" bones. She got rid of a bunch on the living room carpet but she was having trouble at the other end. For four days. The poor thing. We took her to the vet in Burns who gave here some Xrays and found a 3" chunk of bone lodged vertically about three inches in. Some slightly messy work with a rubber glove out in the yard of the vets place and voila - one happy girl! Who is now taking some anti-biotics and feeling like a million bucks. The pressure is off.

My friend Carol was asking about the tire garden. Amazing considering we had a couple of weeks of -20c and below. I think the cold has killed off the greens but today when I opened up a couple of them I found that it was +10c and the greens were thawed out. The chucks sure love 'em. In our other garden near the chicken run the cabbage seems to be doing quite nicely under the snow. Surprisingly hardy is lettuce. I think a fall planting will keep us in greens well into October. Another option I have considered is lighting and heating the tires. In effect miniature green houses. As soon as the snow goes we will be trenching for water and power to the rest of the tires we will be putting in. Around a hundred of them. One of my favorite places is a bench on the South side of the red shed. Nice place to sit ( on a piece of closed cell foam..) and contemplate the view towards the south and highway 16.

Before I go to bed I check the thermometer, while waiting for Xena to go have a before bed whizbang. Warm wind blowing and up to -1c. Wow, a twenty degree rise in temperature in a day. We have had more snow and fortunately, another visit by YRB. We have a beautifuly flat, driveway now. I went out the other day to get the Case Skidsteer running so I could clear out the yard. The ignition ring on the machine was loose, and when I reached down to tighten it up the key came out and fell through a slot on the right hand lever. No spare. A couple of hours later I have the skidsteer ripped apart so I can see the belly pan and hopefully, an errant key. No such luck. Plan "B", order a new ignition switch. That takes a day or so, and yesterday I get the thing back together and up and running. I whip out and start plowing what I can. I am getting faster with the machine and don't really have to think about what I am doing. Not the "which lever do I pull to make it ......

If it looks like that big 'ol fir tree is growing through the shed, it is. There are actually two trees supporting the shed one at the front and back. The farmer built the shed around the trees so that he could use them for structural support. I will be taking the shed down and liberating the living fir. The dead one will end up as firewood this summer. Xena was checking out something that was moving at the far end of the road. this is the top end of our 1km long driveway. We had about three inches of snow last night, about 8 cm for you metric folk. If I get enthusiastic, and get the skidsteer working I will give it a quick scrape. The chickens winter chalet. Well actually the chickens summer and winter chalet. They are snug as a bug in a rug. There is an infrared lamp in the run, or the " tractor " part and a light and a ceramic heater in the "A" frame coop. They had stopped egg production when winter started but seem to be back in the saddle, er.....

December 7th, 1941. May the service men killed on that day "that will live in infamy" rest in peace. May we never forget the futility and cost to our world of attempting to placate tyrants.

One thing this familly needs is a heated garage. Just spent about four hours at -20c putting in a block heater. And getting the air locks out so that the heater would work. Just no fun doing auto mechanicing in sub zero temperatures. When the kids were up a while back we went to the Christmas tree field and picked out the tree and a couple of candidates for next year, and the year after. Today Xena and I went for a trudge and snapped a photo of the tree. Noticed that the moose are moving back in. We ran across tracks in the Christmas tree field and looking out the kitchen window we can see them criss crossing just below the Eastern tree line. Glad to have them back.

Jollied me right up to see the big YRB grader coming up the driveway yesterday. You could land a 747 on the driveway now. No chains required to get in or out. I managed to get the skidsteer going yesterday and cleaned out the yard. Makes walking around and doing chores a lot easier. I finished just as it was getting dark and my feet, even in my -60C boots were starting to get a little chilly. The temperature has fallen again today. -22c here. All the trees are frosted over and it's overcast. Pretty in a cold looking sort of way. I am off to my Brother Tom's to install a block heater in the Toyota. I had been plugging the truck in and it was still hard to start. Then I traced the plug wiring back and noticed that the last time they changed the engine they didn't put the block heater back in. If it gets much colder it can make it really hard to start. Some of the locals tell me about putting tarps over the vehicle and a pipe with a tiger torch under it to get things warmed u...

Made it back from town. Just. Even with the chains on it was slip sliddin away coming up the hill. Jo-Ann got some video of the run, er slide, but she is in the fingers poking in my eyes, coughing, sneezing, can't talk part of the cold/flu experience. And languishing on the couch with a Neo and a jug of Benylin. Her cat, Blackie, acting as a neck warmer. Today I will try and get the skidsteer running and bash a trail down to Savory road so I don't have to put chains on. I visited the YRB office and they said they will try and plow the road if they don't have to put chains on. It just takes too long for them to do. Their primary job is to keep the roads open, and this time of year that keeps them pretty busy. They do the best job I have seen in that regard. The driveway job is a public service they do when and if they have the time. Even if they get to do it once it will be a big help as it will give me a nice flat wide base to work from. I thought I would give an upd...

Its been coming down all night and this morning it is really coming down. Reminds me of last year when we had about four feet in two days. Don't know if you can see from the pictures but it is practically a white out. Fortunatly no wind so far. I am going to try and make it out in a bit just to help keep the road open. I will have to put the truck chains on. We have 40 pounds of pepperoni and farmer sausage at the butchers to pick up also. Tonight I have a meeting in Fort Fraser, but if this keeps up it will be iffy. The chickens are all snug a bug and so are we.