STARTING TO FEEL LIKE FALL

Firewood and geocaching still played a big role this past week.  I’ve done quite a bit of walking looking for caches and seen some interesting places.  I’m up to 163 caches found now.   We’ve both been working on my Mom’s diary and this morning finished assembling 1994 with the last page being 4,718.  We’ve been at this for quite a few years!   Aileen is now into April 1995 and still typing. 

I have done some cycling when time permits and Aileen has enjoyed going to Toastmasters with Sheila.  Aileen intends to join Toastmasters in Florence this winter.    I went to the Coombs Opry last night.  This is a monthly music evening with the Coombs Old Time Fiddlers leading off followed by an open stage.  Last night was an excellent batch of musicians including my sister Wendy.  Many different types of music  were played and there was lots of mixing of performers sharing the stage and backing each other up.

On Wednesday, Chas decided to take down a large dead fir tree behind the motor home.  He climbed up his long ladder and attached a long rope to the tree then Sheila and I pulled on the rope to ensure the tree went right down the center of the lawn.  It did, so no fence or plants were damaged.  We had Aileen behind us trying to get a picture and watching the dogs.  I hauled the blocks down to the splitter that night then the next morning, Aileen and I split them all.  It is all stacked along the fence now and there is probably close to enough wood for next winter.  It will stay out and dry til next fall when it will move into the woodshed which is already full for this winter.  The last part of the job was cleaning all the branches and debris off the lawn.  I hauled it away with the tractor and dumped it on a burn pile.

Last Tuesday, we took chili and other lunch fixings and met cousin Bill Van B at Dagmar and Fred’s in Bowser.  We enjoyed a great visit and lunch.  Bill brought part of the lunch and Dagmar supplied some as well.  It took some planning, but it was all gluten free. 

I was disappointed to receive an email this morning cancelling the ATV weekend that was coming next week.  Apparently the forest is closed to motorized recreation since the fire hazard is still extreme.  There is a possibility of rain on Monday but the decision has been made.   I guess I’m finished riding here for this year.  Now I have to wait til we get to Florence.   We had been planning to move the motor home up to a campground to join the rest of the group, but that has all fallen through now.

I finally got our travel health insurance bought this week.   That isn’t all that simple, apparently.  Every company has a different interpretation of medical conditions it seems.  One company even penalized me for not having had a complete physical in the past twelve months.  A couple put me in the highest category for having had valley fever while others said no problem as it was a onetime occurrence. 

I still don’t have much done planning a route south.  So many things to consider such as what the weather will be like in the mountains and what the travel guide says about some of the passes.  I have a mountain directory which also tells you whether large vehicles are even recommended.  Some of the roads that look interesting on the map turn out to be best driven in a smaller vehicle.  I ran into that on old Route 66 a few years ago.  I was using both lanes to make it around some of the corners.  It was fortunate that there were few other vehicles using the road at that time.  I guess when we get to Arizona we’ll know which way we went. 

Spider web on the fence beside us.

Seen on one of my walks the other day.  Note the figurine hiding in the stump.  The little notches you see cut in the stump are where springboards were inserted to get the fallers higher off the ground and away from the swelled butt so they had less to cut through to fall the tree.  This was back in the day when crosscut saws and axes were the only way to drop a tree.

Here we are dropping a tree using a chainsaw and rope

A successful operation

Old stumps nurse new growth.  Here we have a cedar stump from long ago logging with a second growth cedar dominating a western hemlock which is twisting its way around the cedar.

Right across the trail from the last one, we have a maple and hemlock growing out of the big old cedar stump.

There were quite a few of these fish spawning in the Englishman River and side channels