Been too long since I last blogged and I again apologize to whomever may still check in on this site. Mountain winters are pretty uneventful, mostly all snow stufff and not a lot to write about. It’s hard for us to see our grandchildren as there are a couple mountian passes that are rough going, if they’re going at all. (avalanches). We did manage a quick trip to see Chicage play in Vancouver (great concert at the Red Robinson theatre). We broke up the trip (normally 8 hrs.) with a stopover at Lindsay & Jeff’s and they took care of Shelby. Gave us a good visit them and the ever growing Zachary. Shelby loved all the walks though I’m not so sure Willow (the cat) was sad to see Shelby leave. Susan got in some good snow shoeing in the back with Shelby, they both love it. We also went through seven 40lb. bags of bird seed (sunflower seeds/oiled) this year. What a mess it will be to clean up around the feeder this spring but watching the birds from our kitchen table is always entertaining. It’s always at this time we look forward to spring and are thankful cabin fever hasn’t won us over. Trips to town on weekends out for lunch helps us as well. There never seems enough time for that the rest of the year on weekends as we’re out and about on the farm. Here’s a couple pictures of what I was just talking about……
Cheers, Bob
Susan and Shelby just returning from a snowshoe. Below, the birds…
This past weekend I burned our slash pile. It’s really hard work. Susan also found a couple more squirrel nests so I burned them in the backyard as well. Buggers….
The slash pile is now two years old so the bottom and middle are old and dry which keeps me from smokin out the valley as happens when you try and burn green wood. This pile also had our old picnic table as well as some of the basement ceiling I tore out this year. Why is is so hard, because you have to rip all the stuff out of the snow around th eoutside of the fire and throw it on to the middle coals. You have to do it slowly because it’s very hot work and you can only put so much snow covered stuff on at a time so it dries out and burns up and doesn’t put out the fire. Despite the hard work it’s always neat hangin around a big fire.
This above was the squirrel nests.
I’m going to suggest we take a look at the concept of global cooling. I base this on the 20 + years we’ve lived at our home. I have to plow as there’s too much area to snow blow (though I did snow blow the first couple years) and I pretty much keep track of how many times a year I do that. In the beginning when I first got my tractor I couldn’t wait to get out there and recall the first year tearing the hell out of the place as I was eager to go but the ground wasn’t frozen enough. The novelty of plowing wore off by the end of that year and now I plow when I have to, or a voice tells me that the snow is coming up onto the hood of said voice’s car. Now I have the truck which makes it fun again and am more apt to go out before hearing voices. All in all though I do believe we are getting more snow now that we were 20 years ago and it’s coming sooner. Hence, I declare the world in a state of global cooling and I challenge all to disprove it.
This year we were quick to get ready for the snow and managed to get everything wraped up in a couple weekends. I got all the leaves picked up last Saturday (took me 6 hrs.) and we managed to get them and the manure spread on the gardens, I also got the truck plow and chains on as well as it’s much easier done when not in the snow. We were way early as we don’t get snow until mid November but you never know……guess what, Global cooling and we had our first snowfall 24 hrs. after we put the garden to bed, it snowed Nov. 7th. It’s such a good feeling when it snows and I’m not out there trying to pull garden hoses out of the frozen snow and thawing them in the basement, which has happened since the Global cooling system can catch you off guard.
Can barely see the mtn. top for the storm coming.
Truck’s ready to go.
Leaves are in and will rot and be tilled in the spring.
Great work Susie!
Shelby lookin for squirrels, there’s still hope.
Shelby and the squirrels continue to annoy one another. This day finds the squirrel in the top left of the apple tree, Shelby waiting for the branch to give way…..
I can’t put pictures up of Ava without putting up some of Zach. I’m an equal rights Grampa.
Well, our beef is hangin’ up the Slocan valley at the butcher’s and will be packaged next week. We went in on a Black Angus with some friends. We got him from our friends Brenda & Terry who have a farm just down the road from us. They are fussy about their meat so by growing their own they can have control over how it’s raised. No hormones and other crap. As a matter of fact this year when I knocked out all the apples from the trees (bear proofing), instead of taking them up the mountain I took them to the cattle. Terry came by the other day and we took all the corn stalks and loaded them up for the cattle as well. People talk about buying locally, well I like that Susan and I are growing locally. Susan for years has organically grown our food with many interesting methods, now we are helping to grow our meat, and harvest locally. If only we could plant some toilet paper trees and grow that locally we’d never have to go into to town for shopping…..Oh, I forgot about beer……
The pictures tell tell the story…..
We’ve never really had much to do with squirrels as we’ve always had dogs and cats that pretty much dealt with them. To say nothng of the pack of coyotes living up our mountain. They used to torment Bailey on a regular basis and Bailey would stand under a tree for hours just waiting and hoping one of the little buggers slipped and fell down. Dinner! With the passing of Bailey they have been running around the yard and deck and outbuildings at free will. The other day Susan noticed something had eaten all her flowers in a hanging basket which she attributed to a deer, and she also noticed some onions and peppers missing…..by now you can figure out who did all this. They have taken to building mansions with hay and Susan’s flowers, they’ve gone and taken over the Robin’s nests in Susan’s building and turned them into mansions. Shelby has her work cut out for her and has done a good job as you can see of taking over the reins at the Whitehouse……
